IAAF Green Project launch - l to r: Vice President of the JAAF, Koji Sakurai; IAAF Vice-President Helmut Digel; Olympic champion Naoko Takahashi; IAAF General Secretary Pierre Weiss; General Secretary of Local Organising Committee for Osaka 2007, Hiromasa (© c)
MonteCarloThe Japanese city of Osaka which will host the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics this summer (25 August to 2 September 2007) was today the launch venue for the IAAF Green Project, the IAAF’s first environmental programme.
The IAAF Green Project reflects a commitment to find ways to contribute to the well-being of the global environment at major events such as the IAAF World Championships in Athletics.
This IAAF initiative in Osaka is supported by 2000 Olympic Marathon champion Naoko Takahashi, and 2004 Olympic Hammer Throw gold medallist Koji Murofushi, and the world renowned British singer Sarah Brightman, who is a Green Ambassador for the IAAF Green Project.
It is hoped that this programme will contribute to a healthier earth, one that supports a future in which everyone can enjoy life’s many and varied activities such as the innate human actions of walking, running, jumping and throwing which are encompassed by Athletics, the mother of all sports.
The IAAF Green Project, introduced for the first time in Osaka 2007 will continue at the next Championships in Berlin in 2006, and in further editions, with the baton of hope for the environment also being passed onto future Japanese sporting events.
Detailed plans are currently being worked out based around the following two key concepts:
Green Management: Reducing Environmental Impact; Energy Saving / Resource Consumption Control; Waste Production Control / Utilization of Recycled Materials; Ecological Measures regarding Transportation; Raising of Environmental Awareness
Green Earth: Fundraising for and contributing to Greening Activities, and working together with sympathetic athletes, localities and corporate partners to build support.
“It gives me great pleasure to announce the launch of our first environmental programme, the ‘IAAF Green Project’,” commented IAAF President Lamine Diack.
“Starting at the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics Osaka 2007, we will continue to make a strong commitment to protecting the global environment in Berlin, 2009, and the future Championships that will follow.”
“If we let the global-scale environmental disruption go on, there would be no place for the human beings to do the very basic actions of ’running,’ ‘jumping’ and ‘throwing’ which are at the heart of Athletics.”
It is our belief that the IAAF World Championships in Athletics is the true competition to determine world champions, not of a limited number of people who live in a favourable environment but of all human beings living on the earth and we will do our best to keep it that way.”
“I am proud of the fact that athletics is a truly global sport, and the fact that we have 212 Member Federations around the world is testimony to that. Beginning in Osaka this year, we hope the IAAF Green Project will become a truly global programme for environmental protection, expanding to other Asian countries and all over the world. We will devote ourselves to the global promotion of environmental awareness along with the worldwide development of athletics,” concluded President Diack.
Additional information and results from this project will be published at the following website, where messages of support from Sarah Brightman and Koji Murofushi can also be found - http://green.osaka2007.jp/en/
IAAF
