Participants of Sunday’s TCS London Marathon can opt out of receiving an official finisher’s t-shirt this year, and plant a tree instead, as part of the organiser’s work to make the event greener.
London Marathon Events (LME) will be working with Trees Not Tees throughout 2023 to offer participants in this and other running events, the option.
The scheme is part of LME’s work to reduce its environmental impact and will see Trees Not Tees plant a sapling in its sustainable reforestation project in the UK for everyone who takes up this option. In return, participants will receive a personalised digital certificate, including a photo of their tree, and a what3words geolocation so they can visit it if they want.
Hugh Brasher, Event Director at LME, said:
“We are fully committed to reducing our environmental impact and we’re working to introduce more initiatives every year to achieve this. We know that finisher’s t-shirts are an important part of many people’s event experience, but we also know that many of our participants share our passion for environmental sustainability.
“Working with Trees Not Tees to offer the option to have a tree planted instead of receiving a t-shirt is the next positive step forward for LME as we continue our commitments to event sustainability.”
The Trees Not Tees option will be offered at the following running events organised by LME that feature finisher t-shirts in 2023:
- TCS London Marathon
- The Big Half
- Vitality London 10,000
This is one of several sustainability initiatives for 2023 aimed at reducing the environmental impact of its events, with a focus on lowering carbon emissions, cutting waste and improving circularity.
LME has teamed up with the Council for Responsible Sport to measure the social and environmental impact of the 2023 TCS London Marathon. It will be using the ReScore app, a cloud-based application developed for the Council for Responsible Sport by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which enables event organisers to measure, track, report and verify progress across a range of social and environmental indicators for sports events.
LME aims to reach net zero carbon emissions across its operations by 2024 and to remove more carbon than it emits across all event operations by 2025.
More initiatives
As well providing the option of opting out of the t-shirt, other initiatives introduced across its events and the 2023 TCS London Marathon include:
- £26 carbon levy paid by all international participants used to fund carbon removal and offset projects
- New Balance finisher T-shirts made from 100 per cent recycled polyester
- Reusable Mile Markers created in 2022 made from event waste and recycled ocean plastic
- 100% electric lead vehicles, together with more than 50% of logistics vehicles used in event set up and breakdown
- Cleaner event power including generators and baggage vehicles fuelled by Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO)
- Medal ribbon made from recycled materials
- Finisher bag made from sugar cane
- Bottle belts made from 95% recycled materials to enable participants to carry hydration and reduce the waste of water
- Drink, Drain, Drop campaign to ensure drinks bottles (made from recycled plastic) are returned for recycling to Buxton
- Clothing discarded at the start collected and sent for reuse and recycling
To improve its environmental impact reporting, LME is also working with Green Element, a carbon consultancy, using its Compare Your Footprint platform to help with data capture and analysis, and produce more accurate carbon emissions calculations.
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