Sustainability & Environment

Kiteboarding is an outdoor water sport, which is dependent on nature and the quality of aquatic environment and wind. As an action, kiting has no negative effect on the environment, since the hull causes no physical damage to the water, it produces no waste products nor pollutants and consumes no resources from the natural environment. Yet, the process of making the equipment, the presence of the population and even more organizing and running events can have a significant environmental impact.

The International Kiteboarding Association (IKA) is responsible for the management of the World Sailing (WS) classes of Kiteboarding. In order to create a sustainable future for our sport and the waters of the world, IKA adapts thoroughly the WS 2030 Sustainable Agenda.

Supporting the UN “Sports for Climate Action” Agenda and IOC Sustainability Strategy, IKA aims to display climate responsibility, by engaging the climate neutrality journey. IKA is taking actions in order to incentivize climate action beyond the sports sector, and therefore help global ambition step-up in the face of the threat posed by climate change.

WS’s Sustainability Agenda 2030 sets out a bold ambition to achieve substantial change within the sport which can contribute actively to global sustainability. Sustainability Agenda 2030 is supported by WS’s vision and mission which was launched in October 2016.
In partnership with the World Sailing Trust and 11th Hour Racing, WS has released a Sustainability Education Programme, developed with The Ocean Race, for sailing clubs and parents as part of its Agenda 2030 - sailing's commitment to global sustainability. The materials will ensure the next generation of sailors learn about wider environmental issues that can affect the sport as well as those areas where the sport can make a positive impact.

see WS’s Sustainability Agenda 2030 & Sustainability Education Programme
(https://www.sailing.org/about/Sustainability.php#.YCdjQnmxXb0)

IKA in partnership with World Sailing has released a KITEBOARDING edition of the Sustainability Education Programme.

Download and share the KITEBOARDING edition of the WS’s Sustainability Education Programme
(Links to IKA pdf’s of KITEBOARDING edition of WS SEP)

As stated in WS page: “Sailing is dependent on the environment and by following a few simple rules of conduct when sailing we can ensure our sport has no negative impact on the environment”.

see WS’s environmental guidelines
(https://www.sailing.org/about/environment.php#.YCdjR3mxXb0)

Planning and executing a sustainable agenda for your event should not be a daunting task.

Working closely with World Sailing, we have published a Guide For Sustainable Event Hosting. Through this guide we provide a detailed list of issues, as a guide to a sustainable event. At the moment we hereby exhort hosts to adapt sustainability procedures, but the years to come it will become mandatory to develop a comprehensive sustainability strategy for all IKA event organizers.

see IKA’s Guide for Sustainable Event Hosting
(link: pdf uploaded link)

Following World Sailing Sustainability agenda requirements, for the next Olympic circle we will adapt sustainability protocols for the producers. Our goal is to minimize pollution and conserve energy and natural resources on the production procedures, while having an economically viable and healthful production environment.

IKA producers page
(link: producers page. We will introduce mandatory sustainability strategy, with defined objectives and data recording.)

30X30 petition
IKA is working close with WeAreOneOcean movement and has signed the 30*30 petition, a call on world leaders to support highly, protecting 30 percent of our shared, global ocean by 2030.

See the 30X30 petition movement
(link: https://www.weareoneocean.org/)
(banners of 30X30 petition around the page of footer. If we need more texting, we can find from their page)

IKA claims to be up to date, regarding sustainable acts and decision making. Participates in sustainable public discussions and conferences. Maybe the most important meeting in this field for sport organizations is the Sport Positive Summit, which this year was held only virtually. Sport Positive Virtual Summit 2020 brought together sports leaders from across the globe to support the advance towards a low carbon future for sports operations and events, as well as the education and engagement of fans on climate change. Leaders from sports properties, governing bodies and federations as well as climate stakeholders, Government and UN bodies joined. We renew our appointment for September 2021.

See the Sport Positive Summit page
(link: https://www.sportpositivesummit.com/ )

Our goal is to make the IKA a carbon-neutral organization. The nature of the activity makes this process particularly difficult, but we know the problem and we will become shareholders in its solution. All studies show that travel and especially flights, typically represent the biggest amounts of greenhouse gas emissions for most organizations.

The greenest thing to do will be to stop flying around the world, but this is not always possible. The presence in most of the events of specialized personnel it is imperative.

Social contact is part of human nature and an important aspect for the growth of our sport. The implementation of green policies inside IKA, focuses on the reduce of unnecessary carbon emissions and is a live evolving process. The following practices have been already adapted:

Switch to virtual meetings
Technology today allows direct contact through meeting platforms. IKA has already invested in a conference platform, through which it was able to operate its institutions during the pandemic. The pandemic itself has dispelled any doubts on the effectiveness of online application of institutional procedures. In addition, members who had not been able to attend so far, were given the opportunity to participate in the General Assemblies. The key point was the online completion of the approval of the Olympic Formula Kite equipment for 2024.
Taking advantage of the experience and know-how we gained in the midst of the pandemic and calculating the needs of physical presence in specialized cases, we decided the following:
• Online sessions for all IKA committees.
• Hybrid General Assemblies with live and virtual presence via internet.
• Inspection of production lines for equipment approval, with the physical presence of a minimum number of representatives and the virtual presence of the rest of the Technical Committee.

Restrict air travel emissions
Air travel emissions are by far greater than from other transport modes. For example, in an estimated comparison for a trip from Paris to London, a flight generates about 100g CO2 per passenger per km, when a train 6g CO2 per passenger per km.
• Enforcement of the use of land public transport means, whenever its possible.
• Choose low-emission flight companies.

Encourage greener ways to commute and accommodate
IKA personnel, is encouraged to use public transport and green vehicles. Additionally, event organizers, through our event guide, are recommended to offer free public transfer, bicycles and close to venue accommodation. We support our shareholders to seek out green hotels that are LEED or Green (or any other approved certification) certified.

Social Responsibility
As stated above, our goal is to make the IKA a carbon-neutral organization. Flights are the main source of carbon emissions for our organization. The nature of our activity makes flying obligatory. For any flight we cannot avoid, IKA decided to introduce carbon emissions offset to eventually neutralize our footprint. Through carbon offset we fund green projects which avoid or remove greenhouse emission from the atmosphere. Our main offsetting shareholder is the UN carbon offset platform https://offset.climateneutralnow.org/. The projects are implemented in developing countries and are rewarded with Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), a type of carbon offset measured in tonnes of CO2 equivalent.