The technology, from Bluewater, has been provided in partnership with
the Race’s Founding Sustainability Partner, 11th Hour Racing, and with
the support of the Cape Town City authorities, Host City delivery
partner Worldsport and the V&A Waterfront. The Cape Town stopover marks the eleventh edition that the Volvo
Ocean Race has visited the South African city in the event’s 44-year
history – but with the city’s water reserves currently low due to
ongoing drought conditions, the 2017-18 stopover brought added
challenges.
Bluewater’s purified water solution means that the Race can generate
up to 32,000 litres of clean drinking water for Race Village visitors
daily throughout the Cape Town stopover, which runs until 10 December,
without touching a single drop of municipal water.
Volvo Ocean Race’s Sustainability Programme Manager Meegan Jones said: "These innovative water refill points in our Cape Town Race Village take our sustainable event management to new heights".
“We have a commitment to drastically reduce single-use plastics
at all our stopovers, and the Bluewater refill points means we won’t
impact the City of Cape Town water reserves while still meeting our
plastic reduction goals."
She continued: “In addition, we are running a hugely-successful
plastic bottle exchange in partnership with Consol Glass, which allows
Volvo Ocean Race Village visitors to swap a single-use plastic bottle
for a stylish refillable glass bottle."
“It’s a world-leading example of sustainable event management
that we are very proud of and thankful to Bluewater, 11th Hour Racing,
Consol Glass, WorldSport and the V&A Waterfront for helping us to
make this happen.”
At least one of the machines, which each generate up to 8,000 litres
of clean drinking water daily, will be donated to the city of Cape Town
at the end of the Volvo Ocean Race stopover.
11th Hour Racing, an organisation promoting collaborative, systemic
change for the health of the marine environment, is a founding partner
of the Race’s Sustainability Programme.
“We are proud to join forces with Bluewater on this important project in Cape Town,” said Jeremy Pochman, 11th Hour Racing Co-Founder and Strategic Director.
“This offers a great opportunity to work with the local
community, event stakeholders and innovators to find solutions to a very
serious environmental issue.”
He added: “Together with Bluewater we can also amplify the
awareness of people globally about the threats to local ecosystems and
the efforts needed to address them.”
Bluewater, a partner of 2017-18 racing team Vestas 11th Hour Racing,
was founded by environmental entrepreneur Bengt Rittri, who also founded
leading air purification company Blueair, which was recently acquired
by Unilever.
“Bluewater stepped in to help the city and its citizens after
learning that Cape Town’s water reservoirs are at critical lows due to
the drought conditions,” said Anders Jacobson, CEO and co-founder of Blue AB, the Swedish holding company that owns Bluewater.
“Our partnership with 11th Hour Racing and Volvo Ocean Race
provides us with an incredible opportunity to highlight Bluewater’s
mission to provide clean drinking water to people everywhere and how our
technology can make it more available for millions of consumers around
the world.”
The Volvo Ocean Race’s renewed sustainability focus in 2017-18
consists three key pillars: to maximise impact, to minimise footprint
and to leave a positive legacy.
The provision of these innovative refillable water solutions is one
part of a wide-ranging programme which includes a Sustainability
Education Programme, welcoming kids from local schools to learn more
about ocean health; a Science Programme generating ground-breaking
research for scientists all over the globe, and a host of interactive
and immersive sustainability activations in the Race Villages around the
world.
In addition, the Cape Town stopover will host a two-day Ocean Summit
on 7-8 December, to drive collaborative conversation and awareness of
Ocean Health and plastic pollution issues amongst leaders and
decision–makers from business, politics, science, environmental and
sporting sectors.
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