Our objective

• To drive positive change in environmental sustainability through our own actions and inspire our stakeholders and partners to do the same

Learn more about the environmental sustainability programme across London Marathon Events below.

Initiatives for the TCS London Marathon

Check out the Green Line below to see the key initiatives we've put in place for the TCS London Marathon. It also shows what our participants and spectators can look out for to help us minimise the event’s environmental impact. We know we have more to do, and this is a continuing journey for us.

Here are some of our other initiatives related to the TCS London Marathon:

• Bib numbers printed on-demand to reduce waste at the TCS London Marathon Running Show
• Information about sustainability initiatives at the TCS London Marathon Running Show
• Medals made with recycled zinc for Abbott World Marathon Major Wanda Age Group World Championship finishers
• Flapjacks in finisher bags made in the UK from a local producer
• Carbon levy for international ballot participants to the event to help compensate Greenhouse Gas Emissions associated with participant travel

Strategy: Reduce waste to incineration by 50 per cent across all our events based on 2019 levels

And here’s how:

• Reducing waste by introducing opt-ins for items such as T-shirts at certain events
• Increasing the amount of recycled materials included in the product we buy and embedding circularity
• Segregating waste at event venue sites

What have we done to date:

• Opt-ins
  • At the 2022 The Big Half, we partnered with Trees not Tees to give participants the option to plant a tree instead of receiving a T-shirt and/or medal
• Reducing plastic
  • Reduced the number of Drinks Stations, provided bottle belts and have worked with partners to introduce alternatives to plastic – eg compostable cups for Lucozade Sport
• Product and circularity
  • In 2021 we collected event waste to make mile markers for the 2022 TCS London Marathon – event infrastructure to be used for years to come
  • Used water bottles with a high recycled plastic content that are designed to be collected separately, drained and sent for recycling to make new bottles
  • Created benches made from waste and donated these to projects funded by our parent charity, The London Marathon Charitable Trust (The Trust)
  • Donated leftover food and product to good causes
  • Moved to a store-and-reuse system for event banner roll and reduced single-use cable ties
  • Switched to medal ribbons made from recycled materials for 2022 event medals
• On-site event waste
  • We’re in the process of introducing staffed waste stations to improve recycling and compost rates

We work on a number of cross-organisation programmes and partnerships to support our environmental sustainability work. Here’s a few that have taken place to date:

Mile Markers: waste recovery and circularity

In collaboration with the charity Blueprint for All and the organisation Scal3d, we produced new mile markers for the 2022 TCS London Marathon:

• made from recycled plastics, including waste from our events and ocean plastic
   

Better Bankside Business Climate Challenge: taking climate action

In 2021 we became members of the Mayor of London’s Better Bankside Business Climate Challenge.

Our pledge: to become more energy efficient and cut energy usage across our head office by more than 10 per cent in the scheme’s first year.

While we’re already on a renewable energy tariff, this pledge helps reduce demand on our energy resources while also saving costs.

Carbon balancing: partnering with Climate Impact Partners

We know that carbon offsets are not a long-term solution to damaging greenhouse gas emissions, but we believe it is better to balance our impact while we continue our work to reduce emissions. 

This is why we’ve taken the approach to offset carbon emissions we currently cannot reduce alongside a programme of reduction.

NEW PARTNER: Climate Impact Partners – specialist in market solutions for climate action

Founding members of the International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA). 

We worked with our new partner to compensate our Scope 1 and travel emissions, including travel of elite athletes, staff, contractors and international participants. 

The projects we have offset our emissions through include: 

• Community Reforestation 
• Burn Efficient Cookstoves

All the carbon finance projects we work with are independently audited, validated and verified to recognised global standards – the Gold Standard and Verified Carbon Standard (Verra).

Bottle belts and hydration packs: promoting hydration self-sufficiency

We have a duty of care to provide our participants with appropriate hydration.

All bottles we provide at our events are made from recycled plastic, designed to be collected for recycling directly by the manufacturer in a closed loop. However we also want to continue to encourage participant self-sufficiency to reduce plastic consumption at our events. 

All our participants can use their own hydration packs and we encourage them to use bottle belts. Research from 2019 showed that, on average, participants who used a bottle belt took 40 per cent fewer Buxton Natural Mineral Water bottles during the London Marathon.

We’re a member of the following frameworks, membership bodies and working groups, which promote collective action and knowledge-sharing across all aspects of environmental sustainability:

• UN Sport for Climate Action Framework
• BASIS: British Association of Sustainability in Sporthttps://basis.org.uk
• Abbott World Marathon Majors
• Mass Participation Sports Organisers (MSO)