BT Exclusive: MotoGP Bharat receives ‘Ride Green’ certification from FIM

Marking the return of motorsports in India, since the departure of Formula 1 in 2013, the country is hosting its first ever MotoGP Bharat Grand Prix in the country. Hosted at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, IndianOil Grand Prix of India is one of the biggest and grandest racing events in the world and is expected to be attended by over 1 lakh spectators from across the world. In sync with MotoGP’s sustainability goals, the first time organizers of MotoGP Bharat in India have undertaken various sustainably initiatives, and hopes to host a carbon neutral race in the future.

At the global level there is a FIM (Fédération Internationale de Motocylisme) Environmental Code manual, and all the promoters in all the circuits are encouraged to use as many elements from that as possible. Kartik Agrawal, Chief of Project Office, MotoGP Bharat, (Fairstreet Sports) told Business Today, “At MotoGP Bharat we are also doing that. On top of the environmental code compliance, we also have few of our own initiatives, which we have planned and discussed with the FIM team, and they are very happy with our ideas. So everything is aligned with the code manual.” FIM had gone through the initiatives and plans for organizing MotoGP Bharat and had approved compliance to the their code,  along with awarding MotoGP Bharat the usage of the “Ride Green” certification / logo to the race event in India. This allowance is only provided to race promoters who have furnished substantial information about the environmental efforts.

“Marquee events, as MotoGP Bharat, involves a lot of movements of logistics of people, flights and everything. So being a carbon neutral event is very hard, but to mitigate the impact of the event, we are doing whatever is available to us currently. This year, because we are a little bit short on time, we are trying to do as much as possible by the race weekend and a little bit after that. But we aspire for a carbon neutral event in the long run. Building on this for the next seven years, our sustainability efforts will be yearlong actually. We are planning to do multiple social campaigns, a lot of environmental campaigns, not just during the race weekend, but the whole year,” adds Agarwal.

Carbon Footprint:

Fairstreet Sports, who is the main organizer and promoter of the event in India, states it's very hard to calculate the real carbon footprint at the onset, because the real information comes post event when actual numbers of spectators is available. The organizer intends to have a spectator survey, where they will be able to gather bunch of data that would include from where the spectators flew. Extrapolating this data, Fairstreet Sports will be able to arrive at a carbon footprint of the event.

Logistics:

However, it has addressed the second best part – manage its own logistics for the race and movement of the people.

“As the event organizers, are trying our best to cut down the number of vehicles used for our event. And some examples of that is we are using shuttle buses for staff and volunteer moment, instead of encouraging the staff to drive on their own to commute to the track. In general, we have a collection points everyday morning, and the evening dropping off points for staff, where we have two or three buses plying to the circuit. So basically, like this everyday, we're reducing that 30 to 50 cars driving into the circuit for the last two to three months,” says Agarwal.

Similarly, Fairstreet Sports has arranged shuttle buses from various parts of the Delhi NCR region for the spectators and event participants. So how that will in cutting down on the number of spectators driving down to the circuit on the three event days quite significantly. “We will have somewhere between 8,000 to 10,000 spectators using our shuttles to come from various metro stations of Delhi, even Gurgaon, Noida, Greater Noida, and that is quite a significant number of reduction in the number of cars for the event,” says  Agarwal.

Shared vehicles and shuttle system will be used for all the teams, operations staff, all the foreign delegates and the international media personnel who are here to cover the event, local media, the marshals and everybody.

Apart from that, MotoGP Bharat is using more than 200 electric vehicles, including electric cars and scooters from partners like BMW and Ola Electric, whose e-vehicles will be used within the track as shuttle services and for the teams. Within the track also there's a there's a lot of movement for the operations teams and the participating teams and the riders themselves. These movements are not just for the race weekend, this movement started from Sunday (September 17) till the next Monday (September 25). “This switch to e-vehicles reduces a very big amount of petrol vehicles. In the long run, our aim is to use a fleet of electric buses, as well, for the shuttle services for the spectators and staff which I was talking about right earlier, it was hard for us to get that fleet up this year. So that is our long term plan, to reduce as much as possible the petrol or diesel vehicles for the event usage and switch to electric vehicles as much as possible for all kinds of operations in the long run,” adds Agarwal.

Waste Collection:

Another focus area has been on oil collection in pit garages. For situations where the bikes have to be repaired or prepared during the race, the fuel tanks have to be emptied. So, instead of wasting the oil, MotoGP Bharat has arrange for special oil collection bins between pit garages, where this excess fuel is actually collected. “At the end of the day, we will gather all the excess oil. And will make sure that all of this excess oil is utilized after the event and we wouldn't let a single drop go to waste. So that is one of the waste management initiatives,” says Agarwal.

Some other initiatives around managing waste include partnering with a recycling plant for all garbage to be segregated, teaming up with a NGO called Robin Hood Army for sustainability packaging and supplying leftover cooked food in a hygienic and convenient way and distribute to underprivileged kids.

Fairstreet Sports was also working towards reducing the wastage in branding materials. “We use a lot branding all over the track, and along the city as well. While we try to use cloth banners as much as possible, in certain areas we have to use flex banners (which are made of PVC). PVC is not an easy to recycle material.” MotoGP Bharat will be partnering with “Paryavaran” a not-for-profit organisation, to “upcycle” the PVC banners. “After the event is over, once we bring down our advertising flex banners, there will be a workshop setup, where are partner agency will be basically cutting up and stitching up flex banners into tote bags. And then we will work with them to put possibly some stationery and usable items for school kids and then we plan distribute these bags to underprivileged kids. This kind of initiative lets us “kill two birds with one stone”. Firstly, we take care of the PVC banners, which might not have been recycled by default, secondly, we would have positive social impact as well,” adds Agarwal.

While Fairstreet Sports has just begun its journey towards sustainability, it's important to acknowledge that even small initial steps are significant. Every effort matters in the challenging quest to limit and decrease carbon emissions. This marks the initial stride toward the possibility of hosting a carbon-neutral MotoGP event in India in the upcoming years.