Johannesburg (South Africa), 8 June 2010 - Three days before the kick-off of one of the greatest global sport events on the planet – the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa – a major initiative to green the World Cup and help reduce carbon emissions was launched in Johannesburg, Tuesday.

The initiative is a result of a partnership between the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the South African Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA).

The initiative includes three major greening projects: renewable energy interventions in six World Cup host cities, an awareness-raising drive on green tourism both funded by GEF, and a UNEP programme to offset the carbon emissions of eleven World Cup teams.

Supported by US$1 million in GEF funding, one major project is the greening of public street lights, traffic lights and billboards around the stadiums of six host cities – City of Tshwane (Pretoria), Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality (Port Elizabeth), Polokwane Local Municipality, Rustenburg Local Municipality and Manguang Local Municipality (Bloemfontein). Twelve billboards – two in each city – will switch to solar power, along with 60 traffic lights and 78 streetlights across the six host cities.

Another is the Green Passport project, which aims to encourage visitors to make responsible travel choices whilst visiting South Africa for the FIFA 2010 World Cup. The ‘Passport’ – a 32-page booklet packed with greening tips and information on responsible tourism in each host city – will be distributed to 100,000 World Cup spectators. (www.greenpassport.co.za)

The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) in South Africa, in liaison with the Departments of Energy, Department of Tourism, Central Energy Fund, Eskom and the Local Organizing Committee, has identified five carbon offset projects in order to assist towards offsetting travelers’ emissions. The projects include:

• Solar Cookers, by Sunfire Solutions

• Soil composting, by Soil and More Reliance,

• LED energy efficient lighting retrofit programme, by Lemnis Lighting,

• Wind energy, by Mainstream and

• Domestic fire lighting – basa nge magogo project, by the Nova Institute.

From : UNEP Website : http://unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=628&ArticleID=6611&l=en

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