SANLAM CAPE TOWN MARATHON PLAYING ITS PART TO PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT

Published 24th May 2016

Cape Town, 24 May 2016- Taking further strides as one of Africa’s biggest and most prestigious road races, organisers of the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon have urged runners to consider the environment when running this year.

The event includes a 42km City Marathon, 10km PEACE Run, two trail runs and a fun run. The Marathon was declared climate neutral in 2014 and maintained this status in 2015.

Says Yegs Ramiah, Chief Executive of Sanlam Brand: “A festival of this size, catering for thousands of participants and spectators, can have a significant long term impact on our natural surroundings. As one of the first South African sporting events to achieve climate neutral status we have managed to offset 2115t CO2 over the past two years. This year in an effort to encourage athletes to run green we have made it possible for them to offset their own carbon footprint.”

As part of the race’s #RunGreen campaign, we are encouraging participants to challenge themselves to take the pledge to Run Green.Says race director Janet Welham: “All runners are urged to consider the environment and take action. There are numerous ways in which this can be achieved, in order to ensure we are making a worthy contribution as part of ongoing attempts to plan for the future. We aim to be sustainable and we appeal to each and every runner to take the pledge to run green so as to keep the City of Cape Town clean.”

Runners can take action by taking the pledge to Run Green, in doing this they are agreeing to the Sanlam Cape Town Marathons key initiatives to reduce, re-use, recycle and DO NOT LITTER campaign.

Runners can assist by taking action by:

Not littering by throwing their used water sachets in the Green Chuck Zones and bins, rather than littering by dropping water sachets on the road or pavement

Challenging others to play their part by supporting the #RunGreen campaign

Measuring and off-setting their “travel” carbon footprint by going to http://greenup.herokuapp.com/events/5/users/new And it does not cost the earth: for example, offsetting your flight from Joburg to Cape Town costs no more than a cup of coffee at O.R. Tambo

Running for Nature by supporting WWF’s Run for Nature initiatives

Support the race’s climate neutral initiates by visiting http://www.capetownmarathon.com/about-us/climate-neutral/

With assistance from the Climate Neutral Group, the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon aims to continue making social, economic and environmental impacts in the local community and throughout South Africa by supporting the following projects:

Greenpop Urban Greening and Reforestation Programs and Projects

The Wonderbag Project

Joburg Waste to Energy Project

Basa Magogo Project (More Info: Fair Climate Fund; Climate Neutral Group

Says Councillor Garreth Bloor, City of Cape Town Mayoral Committee member: “We are delighted to see the organisers of this popular event again making a significant effort to protect the environment. We should be mindful of our impact on the environment all the time and not only on World Environment Day on June 5. We need to preserve our scarce resources by constantly working towards reducing our carbon footprint. Let us all work together to preserve Cape Town’s natural surroundings and beauty.”

The Sanlam Cape Town Marathon is made possible by a partnership between the City of Cape Town, Western Province Athletics and ASEM Running.

Africa is our home, this is our race.

It’s Cape Town, must run it!