Conduct a carbon footprint assessment for all events, from the smallest to the “landmark” ones
🎬 Interview with Jean-Baptiste Durier, Director ofAmaury Sport Organisation
Could you please introduce yourself and describe your business?
Jean-Baptiste Durier, Directeur RSE d’Amaury Sport Organisation. Amaury Sport Organisation est un organisateur d’événements sportifs, qui ont la particularité d’être à ciel ouvert, itinérants pour la plupart d’entre eux et organise 80 événements à peu près chaque année en cyclisme avec le tour de France, sports mécaniques, des épreuves de masse, golf et voile.
Since when, and for what purposes, have you been conducting carbon assessments?
We began conducting carbon assessments about ten years ago for some of our largest events. We conducted the first carbon assessment for the Tour de France in 2013 and for the Schneider Electric Paris Marathon in 2016; these were benchmark carbon assessments, which we now strive to repeat on a very regular basis.
Why did you choose the GCI platform?
We chose the GCI platform two years ago because we were impressed by its approach to disintermediation and the digitization of carbon footprint reporting. The fact that it operates differently from how we used to do things—that is, working with specialized firms, consultants, and so on—meant we were dealing with somewhat cumbersome processes that required a lot of time and effort from both those consultants and our teams, and made the whole process expensive.
That didn’t allow us to develop many carbon footprint assessments, whereas with the GCI solution—which is really very simple and quick to implement— the costs are extremely affordable, and this allows us to develop these carbon footprint assessments even for our smaller events—and to truly begin this process of carbon accounting, which obviously includes reduction and then associated offsetting, across all of our events, not just what we call our “flagship events.”
What would you say to an entrepreneur to convince them to conduct a carbon assessment of their business?
If I had to convince someone—an entrepreneur, in this case—to conduct a carbon assessment, I’d simply say that it’s essential, and that while it’s great to want to practice CSR today, it’s difficult to do so without taking an objective look at things. Conducting a carbon footprint assessment is simply a matter of having—just as we have financial accounting—carbon accounting that allows us to better understand our impacts and, of course, to be much more effective at reducing them.
In my view, it’s just as important today to focus on non-financial performance alongside financial performance, and this is important not only—obviously—for the planet and the climate, but it’s also going to become very important for business in the future, quite simply.