The theme for Friday during this inaugural Sustainable Golf Week, hosted by the GEO Foundation for Sustainable Golf, is “Moving Day.” We’ve considered aspects of sustainability through the week: the extent of the challenges golf faces, the part you can play as an individual golfer, the role of the elite game, the future of greenkeeping and the importance of golf to cities and urban areas. Here we look more broadly to the future and try to answer the question, how can golf be more sustainable? The GEO Foundation for Sustainable focuses on six key elements when looking to the future of sustainable golf. They are:
Fostering Nature
(Image credit: Sarah Ryu at 9 Bridges Golf)
Golf is played on 39,000 courses around the world, covering an area roughly the size of Belgium. Half of that area is natural or semi natural habitat. In towns and cities, golf courses are oases of green, elsewhere they are often important for protecting coastal strips or providing buffers for wetlands.
To foster nature on golf courses we must look to understand the landscape and the context on a course-by-course basis. To find natural solutions to integrate with the surrounding ecology. There should be a focus on protecting and fostering rare and priority species while boosting overall diversity around the golf course and there should be a premium placed on safeguarding the quality of the environment, preventing pollution in air, soil and water and minimising noise and disturbance.
Conserving Resources
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The goal should be to avoid consumption of non-renewable resources – fossil fuels, potable water and single-use materials. The key is adaptation and innovation when it comes to the use of water, energy and materials.
All best practices and available technologies should be implemented to conserve water on the golf course and surrounding facilities – water capture, treatment and storage should all be considered.
When it comes to energy, cleaner energy-efficient technologies should be favoured, and all avenues of renewable energy should be explored. We should…
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