INDUSTRY VIEWS
LEISURE DB
TOWARDS A ZERO CARBON FUTURE WHY INVESTMENT IN SWIMMING POOLS’ FUTURE HAS TO START RIGHT NOW It’s a heatwave! As I write this, there are parts of Europe hitting close to 50°C, while the average temperature across the Earth is at its highest level ever. The 2015 COP21 Paris Agreement, signed by 196 countries, is clearly at risk of failing to achieve its goal – limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C – as a direct result of too many countries’ apathy to committing to reduce carbon emissions. Through the 2008 Climate Change Act – amended in 2019 – the UK has a set a target to be net zero carbon by 2050. This gives our sports and leisure industry just 27 years to be a contributor to this target. If 27 years sounds like a long time, let me assure you it is not: there isn’t a sports facility nor swimming pool being designed or built today that isn’t envisaged to still be standing in 2050. And yet so much of what our industry is doing right now is not fit for a zero carbon future – and yes, it’s zero carbon, not net zero carbon. Anyone can offset their carbon use by greenwashing or buying electricity off a decarbonised grid, but at what cost? Need the evidence? Across the UK, there are local authorities where over 50% of their total carbon emissions are discharged just through their leisure buildings. Quite simply, we must all agree – right now – that sustainability-focused investment today is good for our future. Fail to do this and we face incredibly expensive retro-fits and decarbonisation programmes for all those still-standing leisure facilities – a potentially existential threat to our swimming pools that could mean the 2050 version of this report is a whole lot thinner! For best practice, look no further than the sports centre designed and delivered by SPACE&PLACE this year, for Exeter City Council: the world’s only multi-zonal Passivhaus sports centre. This has moved the dial significantly, with a 50% saving on water use, a 70% reduction in energy, and zero in-use carbon. This was no ordinary project, yet this approach needs to become ordinary. Certainly at British Swimming, where I am non-executive director, we’re doing more to rethink our carbon footprint – particularly through travel – with the next generation of eco-conscious athletes driving change from within. We must all come together to turn our swimming industry into a much more environmentally sustainable one – one in which pools support the health and wellbeing of communities, rather than continuing to contribute so heavily to the sweltering, health-threatening heatwaves.
We must all agree – right now – that sustainability- focused investment today is good for our future.
KEITH ASHTON CEO, SPACE&PLACE Board Director, British Swimming
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STATE OF THE UK SWIMMING INDUSTRY REPORT 2023
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