The health, entertainment and commercial benefits of sporting events are well-documented but mitigating the environmental impact of major sporting competitions is a growing priority for the sector. Preventing deforestation, fighting climate change, protecting biodiversity, reducing pollution and carbon emissions, and growing the circular economy are all on the agenda, and a recent collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) aims to put the technology of space applications at the service of sustainability in snow sports.
The announcement was made during the ESA Business Applications and Space Solutions (BASS) conference, ‘Towards a space-powered economy’, where the two organisations signed a Memorandum of Intent focused on the development and implementation of space applications to facilitate innovation to mitigate the challenges facing the sector.
“The connection between sports events and sustainability is becoming increasingly important, as the industry plays a key role in advancing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals” said Davide Coppola, Head of ESA’s Space Applications Initiatives Section. “This collaboration not only fosters innovation, but also has the potential to make a substantial impact on the broader events industry, supporting its efforts to achieve essential sustainability targets in a large scale.”
“Issues like the climate crisis and loss of biodiversity do not pertain to any specific area of society: they are the fundamental challenge of our lifetime, for all of us, and can only be addressed through collective effort. This is our reasoning when entering a partnership like this with ESA, which brings the highest level of human knowledge and technology to our common mission of making the world – and snow sports, for that matter – much more sustainable,” says FIS Sustainability Director Susanna Sieff.
The collaboration announcement comes ahead of ESA’s ‘Space for Sustainability in Sports and Mass Events’ funding opportunity that opens in February 2025. A webinar outlining the scope of the opportunity will be held the same month and over the course of the coming weeks, ESA and FIS will work to outline the first joint activities under the collaboration agreement.
Additionally, the Memorandum of Intent anticipates the potential implementation of space applications to address other future common topics of interest such as athlete performance, safety and security around events, and recreational snow sports experiences.
The collaboration with the FIS is the latest in a series of sports and events-related initiatives undertaken as part of the BASS programme, which has already supported a number of successful projects looking at inclusivity in sports, safety and security at major events, traffic and crowd management at major tournaments and more. Collaborations with UEFA the Italian Taekwondo Federation, Swiss Timing and more continue to facilitate projects across many sports, from sailing and football to cycling, athletics and golf. The open call Space for Olympic Games continues to offer funding opportunities across the sector.
As part of the work around space and sport, ESA has produced a market report outlining the commercial opportunities and use cases for digital transformation and sustainability in sport.
Subscribe to the Space Solutions newsletter