Remote production setup helps SailGP make positive impact in Taranto

With two events completed and the championship standings tightening, the Italy Sail Grand Prix in Taranto also marked the continuation of SailGP’s Race for the Future – using its platform for purpose to break boundaries in sustainable sport and champion a world powered by nature.

In Taranto, SaiGP focused on local community engagement, collaborating with host city authorities to support projects delivering a positive social and environmental impact. These projects achieved the following measurable results:

• 118 young people engaged via SailGP Inspire – the league’s gender-balanced youth and community outreach programme focusing on young people between 9 and 23 years old. The programme offers training courses, careers opportunities and racing for young people through its three programme pathways – Learning, Careers and Racing.
• Supported the University of Bari’s project to regenerate the site of a former 19th century arms factory by planting 50 poplar trees, with the goal of decontaminating the soil and sequestering carbon to help mitigate the impact of climate change.
• Utilised 332sqft of portable clean energy solar panel array from Aggreko to increase the volume of energy generated using renewables – helping to move the league towards 100% clean energy event delivery by 2025.
• Conducted remote broadcast and operations management, with live production taking place from a remote studio more than 1,000 miles away in London, avoiding the need for an additional 85 return flights, saving 45 tonnes of CO2 as part of SailGP’s climate positive agenda.

Delivering boundary-breaking sport in a climate positive way requires massive innovation, and SailGP is harnessing innovative technology to unlock the benefits of operating remotely. Remote broadcasting, remote umpiring and remote race operations are reducing SailGP’s carbon footprint at every race and working towards the leagues 55% footprint reduction target by 2025.

Moving key broadcasting, umpiring and race operations to a remote model has resulted in a huge reduction in the amount of people and equipment that has to be moved around the world, cutting out thousands of tons of carbon emissions for Season 2.

In Taranto, a team of 85 producers and engineers from SailGP’s broadcasting team were able to deliver all the action to the fans via dedicated live feeds, without needing to physically travel to Italy. Using cloud-based data systems, that are also powered by clean energy, means that the remote broadcasting team is saving 45 tonnes of CO2 in air travel alone.

SailGP chief technology officer Warren Jones said: “We want to be different and we want to be as efficient as possible with the tools that we have. Remote production is future-proofing SailGP for the next ten years. Our goal is to use technology and innovation to create a better sport.”

On shore, SailGP supported a clean energy project through planting 50 trees with the University of Bari who are creating a nature reserve within the Mar Piccolo transitional wetland ecosystem. SailGP also continued to break the mould with its remote broadcast ethos that’s delivering measurable impact for a better planet, and the use of solar panels for its portable event energy infrastructure.

On-water, SailGP Inspire engaged young people from the local community through learning and development initiatives. Through Race for the Future social and environmental impact projects and local community engagement, SailGP demonstrated its belief in the power of sport for good and its commitment to inspire other sports, events, cities and fans to show how they can all make small changes for a better planet.

The initiatives delivered in Taranto contributed towards building a better sport that’s more inclusive and more entertaining and promoting a better planet by being carbon positive – making more impact than its footprint on shore and on-water and accelerating the transition to clean energy.

SailGP director of purpose and impact Fiona Morgan said: “Momentum is well and truly building in the Race for the Future. Taranto was SailGP’s second successful climate positive event this season and it was incredible to be on the ground to see our on-shore clean energy and on-water Inspire projects gathering pace and taking SailGP from intention to action. The scale of the operational efficiencies, passion and commitment from everyone involved to accelerate change and deliver our Race for the Future programmes is really impressive.”

The Italy Sail Grand Prix in Taranto culminated in a fairytale ending, with an emphatic home victory for Italian Francesco Bruni and the Japan SailGP Team in front of sell-out crowds in the vibrant southern city.

SailGP’s Race for the Future will continue on 17-18 July as the sport’s best athletes take to the waters off Plymouth, UK for the third event in the global league’s championship calendar.