The final interactive session of this year’s Sport Conference made delegates aware that as social and political pressures call for increasing environmental responsibility among businesses, clubs need to prepare for a future in which sustainability targets must be met.

According to Even Wiger of the FIA Institute, the session’s main goal was to raise awareness among ASNs of the imperatives coming their way.

“Many ASNs are already taking steps but there are many others who are not aware of environmental issues or how to deal with them. However, the fact is that at some stage in the future, environmental issues will have an impact on their work.

“With this session we wanted to make the ASN representatives more aware of the FIA’s Action for Environment campaign and the tools and resources that are available to them to raise their environmental credentials.”

Delegates were given a presentation on how the political landscape is changing and were then given some feedback from motor sport stakeholders who have secured environmental accreditation such as the McLaren Formula One team and Rally Sweden.

During the session, delegates were taken through a process of assessing the environmental capabilities of their clubs, completing a questionnaire detailing such items as whether the club has a dedicated officer responsible for such matters and whether activities conducted by the club have an environmentally responsible element.

Prior to the session ASN representatives attending this year’s conference had been handed leaflets asking if they would like to be contacted by the FIA about environmental issues and according to Wiger the next step is to take these responses and the documentation generated from the session and begin further dialogue with ASNs.

"The level of response was very high," he said. "In some ways surprising, but very, very positive."