From fences to hedges

New standard in sustainable sports management

It is essential to provide safe and high-quality sports infrastructure so that people can continue to exercise and play sports now and in the future. For future generations in Flanders, it is important to pay attention to environmental impact, resource needs and use of space related to sports activities.

The Green Deal Sports Domains represents a collaboration between governments and various partners, aimed at making a contribution from the sports sector to various sustainability goals. This is of great importance because Flanders is home to approximately 10,000 outdoor sports domains, covering an area of more than 17,500 hectares.

Sport Flanders and partners lead innovation in sports field management

The Green Deal Sports Domains focuses - among other things - on soil quality, efficient water management for sports grounds, reducing pesticide use, and integrating sports areas into so-called green-blue networks. The initiators are Sport Flanders and the Flemish Environment Agency (VMM) from the government, and VSF and Netwerk Lokaal Sportbeleid as sector organizations. Together with private partners, they share knowledge about the construction, maintenance and use of outdoor sports grounds, including soccer fields, golf courses, gravel courts, and both natural grass and artificial turf fields.

Nature integration in sports domains

David Nassen and Stefanie Pype, project coordinators of the Green Deal Sports Domains: "Within our original objectives, we are placing specific emphases. One of them is the nature-inclusive aspect. European ambitions indicate that the goal is to restore about 30% of our total nature by 2030. But what if we extend that to and zoom in on our sports domains? After all, we have a lot of "intermediate zones" there, with which nothing is happening now. Or fences that could be more 'natural'. From fences to hedges, as it were. In this way we create extra habitat and increase the food supply for different types of fauna. Adapted management increases the natural value of our sports grounds. It's as simple as that."

Brabant Golf hosts Green Deal event

Stefanie Pype, co-project coordinator Green Deal Sports Domains: "We also recently organized a Green Deal Meeting Day at De Brabantse Golf, with a special focus on the landscape, the link with the environment, biodiversity and, of course, nature inclusivity. During such meeting days, interesting speakers then make sure that whether you are a sports club, sports official, groundsman, engineer, researcher or consultant, you get a lot of valuable insights and inspiration
can pick up for making a sports domain more sustainable."

VMM strengthens local climate efforts with tools and consultants

"The VMM, as one of the Green Deal initiators, came up with an important update for its Climate Portal Flanders (https://klimaat.vmm.be)," Stefanie Pype continued. "The website offers some important tools to adapt public domains. To that end, the VMM developed an IMPACT, PLAN and PROJECT tool. This allows you to review local climate adaptation plans for current and future impact in your municipality. In addition, you receive practical guidance on how best to do this in concrete terms. Since this year, the VMM has also appointed local advisors. With this new service, it established a low-threshold contact point for local governments, provinces organizations. The local advisors can help 'translate' Flemish policy into local plans."

Midwest sports region commits to greening

"Another important action is that the eleven municipalities of Sport Region Midwest convened a working session on Green Deal Sport Domains in October of this year. There they discussed what had already been achieved in terms of 'greening' sports domains and what the specific challenges were. It was also strongly emphasized that they saw this as a pilot project and wanted to achieve a lot in this domain. Now if we could get all 20 sports regions around the table again, we could make great strides. We are working on it," concludes a combative David Nassen.