Sentosa Golf Club becomes first golf club to join UN’s Sports for Climate Action Initiative

Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore has become the first golf club in the world to join the United Nation’s Sports for Climate Action Initiative.

The prestigious golf venue, set on Sentosa Island alongside a diverse array of unique leisure experiences, is regarded for its approach to environmental sustainability and takes this significant step following its collaboration with the international sustainable golf non-profit GEO Foundation.

The UN’s Sports for Climate Action Initiative aims to support and guide sports organizations and their communities on a path to achieving the global climate goals set out by world leaders in the Paris Agreement.

The golf club will add its name to an impressive list of sporting organizations to have joined, including the New York Yankees, La Liga, Sky Sports and the All England Lawn Tennis Club, more widely known as Wimbledon. Sentosa Golf Club will join those other participants in committing to a set of five agreed principles and incorporating them into their club strategy, policies, and procedures, as well as communicating them to their wider sporting community within Singapore and other golf clubs around the world.

The initiative also provides sports organizations with a forum to pursue climate action in a consistent and supportive manner by learning from one another, disseminating good practices, lessons learned, developing new innovations and collaborating on areas of mutual interest.

It also aims to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), as well as strengthening the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change.

“Becoming the first ever golf club to join the UN’s Sports for Climate Action Initiative is a tremendous honor for everyone associated with Sentosa Golf Club,” said Andrew Johnson, the club’s general manager and director of agronomy. “We have already taken great strides with our sustainability program in the last two years and are therefore extremely excited to be joining this initiative. We believe it is the right step for us as a club to continue on our journey to tackle climate change throughout the world and the game of golf.”

Sentosa Golf Club also recently announced a new partnership with GEO Foundation, an international non-profit that aims to inspire, support, recognize and share sustainability across golf. Through this collaboration, Sentosa Golf Club’s future sustainability work will be guided and supported by GEO’s sustainable golf agenda, tracked and evaluated using the industry leading OnCourse program, and verified and assured through the GEO Certified label. It is also anticipated that GEO will help guide and accelerate sustainability action in relation to Sentosa Golf Club’s course renovations and the hosting of the SMBC Singapore Open.

Sentosa Golf Club’s green commitment was brought to the world’s attention with the launch of its #KeepItGreen campaign at the SMBC Singapore Open in January 2018. It has seen a number of key environmental features implemented at the club, such as the creation of its own bee colonies, using rechargeable lithium batteries in its golf carts, banning single-use plastics from the golf course and replacing them with water stations, and building its own sustainable herb garden.

In January 2020, the club unveiled a new sustainability campaign, GAME ON, at the SMBC Singapore Open, that is designed to unite the global golf community in addressing the growing concerns of climate change. It aims to help golf clubs around the world to better prepare for climate change by introducing modern sustainability practices to reduce their own environmental footprint. The campaign is closely aligned with The R&A’s 2030 Golf Course Initiative that considers the impacts, both positive and negative, of the changing climate, resource constraints and regulation on course condition and playability.