Is tinged with green the 2009 Baseball World Cup

by Eleonora Anello

From 13th to 27th September Italy will host the 2009 Baseball World Cup. A big sporting event is tinged with green. A green event where sport promotes sustainable development. We spoke about it with Andrea Abodi, General Director of the Organizing Committee Italian.

Tell us about the initiative.
22 teams will participate to the World Cup and in its main stages will be played in 20 cities of our country. The Organizing Committee formed in Italy wanted to build an integrated project that exit from the traditional patterns of a great international sporting event, making component alongside the sporting five special projects devoted to diplomacy, art, typical of the territories (agribusiness and food and wine), the film and, of course, the environment. From this platform we wish to offer original ideas to bring to baseball a wide range of audience that goes far beyond the already numerous fans of this sport.

What is a “Green Event”?
A "Green Event" is a format that involves the assumption of environmental liability on the part of the organizers of the event. A "Green Event" is the choice to characterize in eco-key an event, it determines the peculiarity of the communication and information. The articulation of best environmental practices adopted and their "witness" through the various forms that the promotion of the event offers, determine the effectiveness of the initiative. In this we are committed to making the 2009 World Baseball event heavily involved in key environmental, from the seemingly marginal aspects of aesthetics: we are the first international sporting event to be inserted "Green Event" in its logo. And we don’t stopped there. In the practice, we are also the first to have the ISO 14001/2004 certification.

Why do the World Cup of Baseball a green event?
Because we believe that sport in general can and should engage more and more on the topic of environmental protection, for the ability and the strength with whom this world may send educational messages. Major sports events in this sense represents another opportunity that combines the communication aspects with the practical implementations in organizational key. That is why we decided to commit so into the 21 locations of the Organizing Committee of Italy and into the local committees, as well as in the 20 sport facilities that will host the World Cup is used as much recycled material as possible, we collect the waste in a differentiated way, energy consumption is generated from sources renewable. At this we associated initiatives on sustainable mobility to get in baseball equipment and about the containment of energy consumption symbolically giving a light bulb low to all viewers who come in stadiums that will host the World Cup. In short, this is a significant effort in key organization that also has a projection of a newspaper which will contribute decisively to the departments of local authorities of cities involved.

Can sport make us more ecological by communicating good environmental practices?
The answer is obvious, it’s affirmative. But the commitment must be constant and widespread, it must be systematic and systemic. It must take an institutional character. Beginning of the CONI and the 45 national sports federations, a massive and coordinated activity could start, also made of small choices and little attention to key environmental information which should be divided in offices and sports facilities, on the one hand aimed at progressively improving the environmental balance of this world. Just think that in Italy there are about 150,000 facilities on which to intervene. And what would you think to consider the millions of practicing sports and their families as key goal in educational and behavioural to give effect to the development of environmental sensitivity in our country? Ideas are not lacking and with the World Baseball we start doing our part.