The world’s first «climate positive» hockey team

Sports and the Entertainment Industry has a fundamental role to raise awareness for climate action, and now the Norwegian national hockey team takes lead.

Get is the main sponsor of the Norwegian ice hockey league, the Get League and the Norwegian ice hockey team. At the same time, they are passionate about sustainability and want to protect the future of winter sports. Therefore it makes perfect sense for Get to present the world’s first «climate positive» hockey team.

The Norwegian national team is doing a lot to reduce its carbon footprint, including reusable bottles and tap water avoiding plastic bottles, recycling bins at every event, use of online ticket system, use of public transportation, shortest possible distance between hotel and arena, only use of hotels that have good routines for sustainability and sale of used equipment for supporters / clubs.

- We have been passionate about making the sport more sustainable and being a positive example to all the people we meet and interact with. Now we are truly taking the lead on fighting climate change, and as a national hockey team it feels really good to be in the lead, says Ottar Eide, General Secretary Norwegian Icehockey Association (NIHF).

The National Norwegian Hockey Team

Both the practitioners and the supporters have been very concerned with sustainability and they already do a lot to reduce their own footprint. But still, the team have to travel around for playing matches and unfortunately, these trips often involve taking a flight since there are long distances and the time period between matches are limited. Recognizing this, Get together with the national hockey team decided to make their 2019 season not only climate neutral but climate positive. This means that the full team will strive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to their sports season as much as possible, and then over-compensate for the unavoidable emissions using United Nations-certified credits through CHOOOSE.

- The hockey team is, and must be, a positive social contribution. They contribute to activation, cohesion, talent development, and local communities. In this, it makes good sense to also include sustainability. The Norwegian national hockey team can lead the way as a good example for many by taking real climate action and we are very happy to support that effort, says Sebastian Eidem, communication manager and responsible for sustainability at Telia.

Certified by the UN

The national Norwegian Hockey team’s efforts to act on climate change, both by measure their footprint, reduce with local initiatives and offset the unavoidable emissions by buying carbon credits through CHOOOSE, has now made them certified as an official part of the UNs climate program Climate Neutral Now.

The world's first climate positive hockey team

- Making the Norwegian hockey team the world's first climate positive national team is a true honor, and we are proud to collaborate with someone who really uses their position to both spread awareness globally and to take real action. They are already climate champs, so now we wish them the best and hope they will be world champions as well, says Andreas Slettvoll, CEO at CHOOOSE.

In the future, Get in collaboration with the Hockey team will look at how they can use smart house and IoT technology to create more energy efficient ice rinks and streamline the operation of the same halls. It will be a very exciting challenge for Get and the ice hockey association to create a climate action oriented future for the sport.