More than ever before, motor sport’s stakeholders are striving to improve their environmental performance. Racing teams, circuits, National Sporting Authorities and events have understood that sustainability is not just an area that can improve their efficiency but also have a positive effect on their income.

To facilitate this, the FIA Institute’s Sustainability Programme offers motor sport’s organisations the chance to measure, improve and be recognised for achieving the highest environmental standards. It offers an environmental accreditation scheme, the first to have been developed specifically for motor sport, which rates organisations on three levels of performance and offers benchmarks on which to improve.

A number of organisations are leading the way. The McLaren Formula One team was the first race team to be awarded the top-level Achievement of Excellence and earlier this year the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya became the first Grand Prix track to reach the same standard.

But the programme is also supporting organisations on their way up the ladder. Finland’s ASN, AKK Finland, has achieved the second-level award, Progress Towards Excellence, and is striving to make it to the top.

One thing that all of these motor sport stakeholders have in common is their commitment to improvements in environmental efficiency, something that can only be good for the future of the industry.

The Race Team

When the Sustainability Programme was unveiled in June 2012, McLaren was the first organisation to apply for accreditation. The British team, which has been working on its environmental credentials since 2007, has taken the principles of sustainability into the core focus of the company and this can be seen throughout its products and ventures.

These include the P1 hybrid hypercar, the Formula E electric powertrain technology and even the company’s work with the UK’s National Air Traffic Service (NATS), which helps to increase efficiency at airports.

“McLaren Racing has developed strategic modelling software which looks at a multitude of variables in real time to predict race strategy,” explains Ian Robertson, technical manager of the McLaren Technology Group. “These principles are being developed by McLaren Applied Technologies as predictive intelligence tools to reduce the holding times that aeroplanes spend in the sky above airports, thereby potentially reducing CO 2 emissions.”

The most visible element of McLaren, the F1 team, also demonstrates the company’s commitment to sustainability. The team’s KERS systems are present in the P1 hybrid system and the drive systems of the Formula E Championship’s power units. Each department within McLaren has its own sustainability targets – even the race team’s truck drivers have a competition to see who can drive the most efficiently. “We use telemetry systems on the trucks to monitor and collate data on every aspect of the driving of that truck,” explains Robertson. “The drivers are quite a competitive bunch, as you can imagine.”

Despite expanding its business in recent years through its road car and technology operations, McLaren has managed to reduce its carbon footprint by 38 per cent in relative terms to its increased turnover. McLaren’s accreditation at the top level in the FIA Institute Sustainability Programme has helped it to achieve this. Robertson believes that the award added a sense of legitimacy to the team’s work. “When we spoke to the FIA Institute about the Sustainability Programme, we weren’t as organised as we could have been with the diff erent elements of sustainability and the programme helped pull everything together into a framework.”

It also helped to have an endorsement of its achievements from an external regulator. “If we had been singing our own praises then it might not have been taken as seriously as an external organisation endorsing what we’d been doing,” says Robertson. “That external verifi cation is very useful.”

The Race Track

As the first Formula One track to be awarded the top level in the Sustainability Programme, the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya’s management uses a variety of means to improve the environmental impact of the facility, which had 88,700 people attend the 2015 Spanish Grand Prix race day and also hosts events in other major motor sport categories, such as Moto GP and the World Rallycross Championship.

“We have focused our efforts on the sustainable management of resources by means of selective trash collection for their valuation; the promotion of sustainable mobility when travelling to and from the circuit and the respect of our environment by means of a progressive extension of green areas,” says circuit president Vicenç Aguilera.

The track relays its commitment to the environment to the crowds attending events via its PA system and has set up an environmental surveillance committee that monitors and informs spectators and track employees about sustainability.

There is a system for managing the environmental impact of water and energy that involves continuous assessment to allow for improvements and corrections if deviations are detected. “To do that, we have drawn up detailed procedures, record external communications [that are] received and prepare regular reports in order to be able to act,” explains Aguilera.

During Grand Prix weekends, the track management collaborates with local public transport companies to offer all spectators the chance to travel via trains or buses, with increased frequencies on those services. The track also promotes a ‘Stop Food Waste’ campaign and has a ‘Green Meeting Point’, where environmental awareness is discussed with spectators during events.

The circuit has off set its CO2 emissions by planting more than 7,000 trees in forests surrounding the track and by implementing a waste recovery system. “We have applied a selective collection system for all the generated waste, as well as a small-volume waste collection centre for recycling purposes,” explains Aguilera. The collection centre recycles around 50 per cent of the circuit’s total household waste and the unnecessary use of paper and batteries is discouraged.

Aguilera is pleased that his organisation has been accredited by the FIA Institute and recognises the benefits that environmental awareness has for all elements of society. “The fact that the FIA Institute is promoting this type of programme is excellent,” he says. “It is vital for the continuous improvement proud, as they are the consequence of a job well done and motivate us to continue working in this field.”

The Race Club

Currently at the second level of accreditation the Finnish National Sporting Authority, AKK Finland, is making progress towards excellence with the help of the programme. “The process has changed our way of thinking generally,” says Jani Backman, AKK’s director general. “We will update our processes step-by-step and hopefully reach the highest level as soon as possible. Our target is to have an effect on motor sport throughout Finland at all levels, from a club evening to a world championship event.”

As the organisation works towards the top step, it has introduced a best practices manual based around environmental issues for the country’s local clubs and circuits to use. The document covers many of the key areas of sustainability, including conserving the natural environment, waste management and energy consumption.

This has been invaluable for its biggest motor sport event, the World Rally Championship’s Rally Finland. “We work together with Rally Finland to raise the national awareness,” says Backman. They have defined eight key priority areas to achieve a sustainable operation, including improvements to environmental processes, decreasing waste effi ciently and emergency situation plans.

“These points assist the rally in the day-by-day planning and, together with the accreditation process from the FIA Institute here at AKK, we believe that we are in a position to improve our environmental performance in the future.”

But tackling noise pollution is the AKK’s biggest test: “Noise management at facilities and decreasing noise levels in our rules in the long term is our most important but continuing process.”

The AKK believes another way it can improve its environmental performance is by educating its offi cials so that they are thinking about the environment when planning events with local authorities. The organisation also introduced an electronic notice board and distributes results and offi cial papers via mobile applications.

“Attitude is the key,” says Backman. “Sustainability is not rocket science, it’s more about a way of thinking.”