News article
Johan Cruijff Arena aims for net positive with new sustainability standard
Johan Cruijff Arena, together with Global Sustainable Enterprise System (GSES), is launching a new international sustainability standard for events and event venues.
The Global Sustainable Venue Benchmark (GSVB) will be a measurement and verification process that measures the sustainability of organisations, events and suppliers. The iconic Amsterdam arena, the home of AFC Ajax, will use the new system to achieve its ambition of become net positive by 2030.
Johan Cruijff Arena has already worked hard to be more sustainable, and has installed more than 4,200 solar panels on the roof of the stadium. The venue has also procured wind energy to provide green electricity for its operations.
The arena is hoping that the new standard will help other organisations to become more sustainable in partnership with GSES, and is also encouraging its entire chain to register on the platform.
"Johan Cruijff Arena has already worked hard to be more sustainable, and has installed more than 4,200 solar panels on the roof of the stadium"
GSES is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for measuring sustainability and uses the GSES Metastandard. The overarching standard recognises more than 500 international sustainability standards and certificates, and all data on the dashboard has been independently verified by a certifying body via Audit Independer.
The arena will measure the added value on Environment, Social and Governance (ESG), which can also be seen in a dashboard from GSES. Its own sustainability performance is not the only aspect to be measured, but also the supply chain (including scope 1, 2 and 3), the SDG (sustainable development goals) and CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) progress.
Organisations can be assessed on a number of pillars including CSR, circular economy, CO2, sustainable procurement, health and safety and biodiversity. Products can be assessed on the health footprint, circular footprint, environmental and social footprint, with all assessments presented in the form of standardised scorecards on the platform. GSES works with officially recognised certification bodies such as Control Union and Kiwa to independently verify information.
Image: Junpeng Ouyang on Unsplash