*By Alexandros Zacharopoulos

Since Sports=Health and Sustainability=Life and since we know Health=Life, then Sustainability=Health and therefore Sports = Sustainability! Nothing better and more rational, than to invest energy, administrative gray matter, work and budgets to turn our Greek sports into a Green Eiforo, the administrative goal is to turn ALL the facilities we sport in Green, Sustainable and Smart!

We all know by now that climate change is forcing us to stop YESTERDAY our galloping energy-intensive practices. We are also experiencing an almost unprecedented energy crisis that is unfortunately here to stay and makes it imperative to reduce energy consumption and CO2 footprint.

Two issues we should impose, with their immediate change, in order for the "PHILOCLIMATE" Our GREEN goals, for the entire Green Deal (green deal & net zero energy) in our sports facilities:

Smart and Neutral!: To invest in the smart electro-mechanical operations (RES & E/M Net Zero Retrofit) of our sports facilities to produce locally within the facilities energy that will be used by the public sports facilities (self-feeding & net metering), to lower the consumption so that eventually tend to become energy neutral (net zero) by investing in systems to actively and passively reduce the energy needs of sports facilities, and to smartly measure the way we consume energy, so that we can mitigate the great waste that is done in public sports facilities!

Education + Education and again Education: With education and pedagogical tactics STARTING with the FAMILY and primarily in SCHOOL of preschool and primary age, to teach the economy in the consumption of energy and water resources, the limitation of energy waste as a socially reprehensible misdeed, to make the child feel that it is a misdemeanor to WONDERFULLY spoils water and light, or VANDALS public facilities, nurtures the spirit of economy and respect primarily in our youth who cause most of the vandalism!, and SURELY, where better to start? from where he is active and feels well, the SPORTS facilities he visits, plays and loves. Obviously and especially the twin strategic training-and-again training, concerns the next series of adult managers and users of sports facilities, who are called upon to apply the highest conditions for neutralizing as much as possible the energy consumed and optimizing the performance of each energy-consuming ( or actively wearing!) sports facility.

The bill paid by the OTAs and each Region per sq.m. of sports facility space costs twice as much as in Germany and Sweden, which have a higher price per kilowatt hour. It's not just the cost to PPC, when you factor in maintenance and useful life per part/consumable. The cost picture becomes extremely disturbing for the failure of the public administration to intervene dynamically earlier in the matter. Now there is no room, the effects of climate change are already acute and the worst has not yet arrived with the rise of the average sea level in the Mediterranean Sea and the desertification of our lands.

In the current government, the cooperation with the initiative of the General Secretary of Sports L. Avgenakis and the officials in the competent services of the decentralized administrations and Regions, with the support of the Kallikrat OTAs where they also have jurisdiction, have timidly but actively started the first calls for projects to minimize of the energy footprint left by public – national, municipal, school, union and tertiary university (HEI+ATEI) – sports facilities.

In every type of public sports facility - swimming pools, indoor gymnasiums, football stadiums & stadiums, outdoor sports facilities as well as facilities of other categories - a special "mix" of energy solution interventions is applied which help, and in some interventions zero out, the energy footprint their. They thus contribute to the saving of funds from the use of costly utility networks of energy and water, while in successful interventions the goal is to even generate income for the operation and maintenance of the sports facilities at the same time.

In Greece, based on the relevant mapping of sports facilities, in total there are more than 10,700 autonomous building entities across the Territory. The field of action for the technical services of DG Sports is large. Could the General Secretariat of Sports in agreement with RAE and DEDIE give per Region the relevant PPP neutralization of operating costs and income from the production of the remaining generated energy of the sports facilities with a 30-year package based on geothermal heat pumps and other small groups RES that combine PV, CHP, or groups of small or very small vertical axis wind turbines of 1-10KWp etc., or another mix, depending on the size/consumption needs, geographical location and climatic conditions of each sports facility and sports unit facilities (sports facilities clusters). Because most sports facilities still use old vulnerable energy-consuming systems, every euro spent on these smart electro-mechanical interventions to neutralize the energy footprint will generate a multiple profit in the next 30 years when we will now measure the goals we finally achieved on the field on the way to zeroing our energy footprints per facility and per carrier.

We do not want the old energy-intensive sports facilities to remain champions of consumption from the national networks, but to complete their status where their use and operation does not create an impact on the environment and does not cost so much to the state budgets.

Like all public buildings, the DG of Sports within the framework set by the Ministry of Education, with the modern correct actions of the competent bodies, are INVITED to create the next day in the sports public facilities of the country. They MUST catch the necessary targets signed by the country at COP26 last month where by an overwhelming majority the European Parliament, the relevant European reporting bodies, the European Directorates as well as the Council of Europe accelerated the Green Transition to what we call Green Deal (Green Deal).

Greece, in complete contrast to the older populisms of the past where everything was left on boards and posters, PIONEED the green sustainable fermentations, played for the first time in the international environmental forums a leading role, with Prime Minister Mitsotakis having the general acceptance of the conferences and of his bonds - a common privilege possessed by Northern Europeans mainly in environmental matters -, who was embraced by all for his contribution to the positive agenda of the Green Transition/Agreement, and who with the responsible Minister Kostas Skrekas was finally brought to the Greek Parliament and the 1st Climate Law of the country (11/2021)!

So let's see how well we do in implementing it? Sport is Culture and Health and from now on it must slowly become more and more Green and Sustainable. DG Sport must take the great opportunity that is being given to them and lead the energy neutralization of the CO2 footprint in the rankings of general government building facilities, as it is and CHAMPIONS of energy consumption!

*Alexandros Zacharopoulos is a Graduate Civil Engineer & Geologist MBA/MPA/MEng, Chief Engineer of Public Works and Research Fellow at the Administrative Science Laboratory of the Athens University of Economics.