Register Now: IBU Sustainability Seminar Oberhof 2023

The sport of Biathlon wishes to take advantage of the current season to accelerate its pace of change toward climate-friendly operations.

The IBU Sustainability Seminar, entitled "From Energy Efficiency to Long-Term Decarbonisation," is co-organised with the German Ski Federation (DSV) and Oberhof 2023 Organising Committee and will provide an opportunity to review the current state of efforts and explore the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Join us on Thursday, 9th February 2023, at 14:00 CET at the AWO SANO Ferienpark in Oberhof for an afternoon of discussion and debate about the future of our sport.

Official invitation

Please confirm your participation by registering via this link.

Background of the Seminar

As a snow sport, biathlon is directly impacted by climate change. In response, it has adopted an ambitious sustainability strategy 2020-2030 with ambitious climate commitments such as reducing its footprint by 50% against 2019 baseline by 2030 while becoming climate neutral by 2030 and net zero in 2040.

From the long term perspective, the energy crisis is both a blessing and a curse. The energy cost increases and high inflation rates are impacting everyone in the Biathlon family. Meanwhile, the current situation provides an opportunity to review consumption patterns and practices to save energy (fuel, power, etc) and costs across the board. Through careful analysis and targeted efforts many biathlon stakeholders have found opportunities to gain efficiencies and reduce energy consumption by up to 20%.

To respond to the much greater crisis, the climate crisis, these energy efficiency measures need to become the new norm of doing business in the future. Rule exceptions need to become permanent. Importantly, these energy saving practices need to be accompanied by a series of “decarbonisation measures”. These will ideally include projects that help the biathlon family transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy in all areas of operations, substituting carbon-intensive with low-carbon transport fuels, finding ways to electrify, LED-ify, and implement new types of energy storage and temporary power solutions, such as batteries.