UNEP

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) - a successful team in the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket competition - has announced its participation in the Climate Neutral Network (CN Net), an initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). CN Net is at the forefront of the movement towards a global transition to low carbon economies and societies.

RCB becomes the first participant from India and the first sports team in the world to become a member of the Climate Neutral Network.

Satinder Bindra, Director of Communications at UNEP said, "Royal Challengers Bangalore has long shown leadership on the cricket field - and it has also shown inspirational leadership in the environmental arena to mobilize its fans and followers in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. UNEP is proud to welcome RCB as the first India-based participant of the Climate Neutral Network - more inspirational leadership from RCB, which we hope will inspire even greater efforts in India to tackle climate change".

According to Sidhartha Mallya, Director of RCB, RCB's green initiatives began in 2010, during the third season of the IPL. A number of unique initiatives have been implemented, including car pooling solutions for fans coming to the stadium, waste segregation at the stadium and effective disposal through recycling and composting, collaboration with the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation for additional buses to and from RCB's home stadium, and placing a carbon footprint calculator on the RCB website. The initiatives helped RCB reduce its carbon footprint by almost 50,000 kilograms of CO2e and more importantly created awareness and change in more than 100,000 fans directly.

This year RCB has gone a step further and is committed to becoming the first carbon neutral cricket team in the world. Carbon neutrality for RCB is being achieved through a unique fan-driven initiative - of the fans, for the fans and by the fans - through which individual RCB fans adopt small environment-friendly changes in their regular lifestyle, and pledge their emission reductions to RCB. Each of the green initiatives has the dual objective of generating awareness about environmental issues and generating real and significant emissions reductions.

The initiatives that RCB has engaged in include: Sapling Plantation drives at schools, colleges and communities through a unique ‘Adopt a Plant' approach; solar water heater initiative; renewable energy themed contests on social networks; specially designed events to encourage people to use electric cars/bikes; actively supporting and adopting Bus Day by urging all the fans to travel by bus every Bus Day; and a switch over to CFL low energy light bulbs drive. Through these initiatives emissions reductions of 2000 tons have been achieved to date.

RCB expects to officially become Carbon Neutral after it receives a certificate from Det Norske Veritas - a leading global audit agency - which is currently auditing the data.

"Carbon Neutrality is not a destination for us, but the first step, in our journey of bringing environmental awareness and lifestyle change in the daily activities of ordinary people," said Sidhartha Mallya. "RCB is Game for Green, are you?"

UNEP's Climate Neutral Network: www.unep.org/climateneutral http://www.unep.org/climateneutral

Royal Challengers Bangalore's page on CN Net: www.unep.org/CLIMATENEUTRAL/Default.aspx?tabid=3061