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Article | 10 February 2022 | ESG
The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and Hebei province are being touted as the greenest and cleanest. With the widespread use of renewable energy, hydrogen-powered vehicles, and pre-existing venues. Helping the Olympics to go green is Shell’s first commercial hydrogen development project in China. Utilising onshore wind power, the project is supplying green hydrogen to power more than 600 fuel cell vehicles at the Zhangjiakou competition zone during the games.
However, the downhill skiing and snowboarding portions of the games are set in the mountains near Beijing, which traditionally have very little snow. To compensate, they are relying on artificial snowmaking, a process that consumes huge quantities of water and electricity. While many activists and scientists see the extensive use of renewable technology as a step in the right direction, the use of 100% fake snow has caused controversy. Experts note that global heating trends could make the event unviable at all but one former host venue by 2100.
We agree that sporting events are becoming less sustainable, particularly as they’ve expanded in size and scale over the decades. And the winter games in Beijing are no exception, despite adding a huge number of green initiatives. While we welcome the ‘green and clean’ solutions at the current Olympics, so much more can be done. We believe that sport is a great way to deliver the sustainability message across the globe. No other activity has the power to bring people from all walks of life together. It would be a brave and exciting step to have the International Olympic Committee set the standard for the large-scale events held globally by coming up with a long-lasting sustainable solution.
Each month, we look at the steps Architas and the AXA Group are taking towards a better, more sustainable future for our employees, communities and the wider world.
In recent years, there has been increasing acknowledgement of the importance of good mind health to physical health and wellbeing. And in January, AXA launched its 2022 edition of Mind Health and Wellbeing study, an assessment of the mental wellbeing of people across 11 European and Asian countries and territories. It’s an annual study to plot the mental wellbeing of populations over time, building a body of information that will offer insights into how best to tackle illnesses and promote maximum life satisfaction.
At Architas we specialise in multi-manager, multi-asset investing. We work with fund managers to ensure they are investing responsibly and focusing on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. In 2018, we began our journey to full ESG integration across all of our offers, and we aim to achieve this by the end of 2021. Since 2018 we have also been signatories of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment. For more information about our responsible investing process please click here.
