Whether in the sea, lake, river or in artificial wave pools, as a landlocked surfing nation, the practice of our sport is always associated with a not insignificant impact on the climate. In order to be able to pursue our passion here in Switzerland, in Europe and all over the world for as long as possible, we are dependent on healthy ecosystems. As the umbrella organisation ‘Swiss Surfing’, we also recognise that the environment is undergoing major changes and that there is an urgent need for action.
With our sustainability mission statement, we have set ourselves the task of following up strategic words with targeted action. With the new Swiss Surfing Sustainability Team, an internal specialist group has been set up at the organisational level that will support us in the future with knowledge, measures and actions relating to this topic. Our first official act is to join Swiss Olympic's commitment to protecting the environment through sport. This commits us to seven pledges in favour of environmentally friendly sports development.
‘It is our great incentive as an umbrella organisation to protect the valuable resources for our ‘happiness’ in the water, to sensitise our members and the network and to make a difference through action.’ Dario Müller, CEO
The main task of Swiss Surfing
Swiss Surfing is committed to creating the best conditions for recreational and competitive surfing as well as promoting young talent and education. They provide access to high quality surfing nationwide, promote social and active community participation and strive to make national athletes internationally successful in the long term. They also provide high quality training and strengthen their organisational capacity in economic, environmental and social terms.
Where is the journey going?
We have around 40,000 active Swiss surfers and also work closely with around ten active national surf clubs and international associations. Above all, we want to act as a role model for all national clubs and invite them to adopt our sustainability mission statement as a basis or use it as a source of inspiration so that together we can have an even greater impact on our climate and our ecosystem.
How do we get started?
By signing the seven commitments of Swiss Olympic's commitment ‘Sport protects the environment’, we are setting the first milestone in our sustainability plan, which forms the basis for our further goals and tasks. The tasks will be summarised in a further step. In doing so, we emphasise participatory cooperation with our members, the community, our partners, the venues of our competitions and other stakeholders who will accompany us on our sustainability mission.
-> Check out the PDF document down below to see the sevent commitments
Our goals and tasks at Swiss Surfing:
1. Raising awareness
We inform and motivate the Swiss surfing community to adopt environmentally conscious sporting behaviour and offer appropriate support.
2. Sport-specific and social measures
We are committed to an inclusive and widely accessible surf sport in Switzerland. We protect the environment through considerate (surfing) behaviour.
3. Biodiversity and network
We endeavour to ensure that the sport has a positive impact on the environment. We want to make a meaningful and useful contribution to the waters and biodiversity where Swiss Surfing can actually make an impact. To this end, we strive to collaborate with other organisations.
4. Climate action
We take our own measures to protect the climate and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of our organisation's activities wherever and whenever possible. As an organisation, we strive to achieve a net-zero target. We support our members, clubs and athletes in reducing their CO2 footprint in sport.
5. Sustainable procurement
We procure materials, clothing and sports equipment according to sustainable criteria and encourage our members to do the same.
6. Events
We address sustainability at our events using a list of measures. To this end, we are guided by recommendations such as those from ‘Saubere-Veranstaltung’.
7. Evaluate, communicate and pass on
We regularly evaluate our efforts in environmental protection, communicate these transparently to the public and are constantly improving. We obtain missing information about sport and the environment where there are gaps in our knowledge. We regularly exchange information and pass on our experiences
Contact our Team Sustainability:
Sebastian: sebastian.bosson@swisssurfing.ch
Melanie: melanie.zihlmann@swisssurfing.ch
Florian: florian.coray@swisssurfing.ch
Click on the following link to find out more about Swiss Olympic's commitment:
Swiss Olympic - Sport schützt Umwelt
