Sponsoring sport - the golden goal?

Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of last year’s Olympic Games was a real landmark.

At a time when society is increasingly expecting businesses to demonstrate that they play a positive, responsible role in the world, sponsorship is the ideal moment to do something really impressive and really public, and get the rewards that leadership deserves. 

At London 2012 Coca-Cola did some impressively positive things, judging by any standards. Whether it’s the fact that 73% of drinks consumed at the Games were Coca-Cola’s water, juice or no/low-calorie brands; the fact that 100% of bottles were recyclable and the £15million invested into a new UK recycling plant to handle them; the 1000 young people given the chance to carry the torch as a Future Flame for their community; the investment in the Special Olympics to create sporting opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities; or the hundreds of environmental pledges made by athletes at the in-park sustainability hub created by Coca-Cola (I could go on – read more here), this was a wide-ranging, innovative and really committed demonstration of a company doing the right thing, in a relevant way at the right moment.

WWF-UK CEO David Nussbaum sees it as a new benchmark that other sponsors will be expected to reach, “The work Coca-Cola has undertaken to reduce its impact at the Games, and the lengths to which it has gone to use the power of its brand to engage others and ensure its actions have a lasting impact is to be commended and sets a standard for future corporate sponsors of international events”.

We worked with Coca-Cola to produce London 2012: Our Sustainability Legacy, detailing how the company achieved their most sustainable sponsorship to date in order to inspire and guide others wanting to deliver a truly sustainable event of their own. It provides new best practice models, including one for measuring and managing carbon impacts; another for an innovative, efficient waste recycling system for large events. Last week the final piece of the jigsaw was added when Demos published the results of their review to quantify the social impact of Coca-Cola’s London 2012 sponsorship – see the headlines here.

Models are one thing – there are three in the links above to get you started if you’re responsible for (or sponsor of) a big event.  But they’re not enough. It’s putting it into practice that matters for the brand and for us all. Coca-Cola did it at London 2012. 2013 brings the World Athletics Championship, the African Cup of Nations, the Rugby League World Cup, the Australian Open, as well as the conclusion to the Champions League, Wimbledon and all the other annual sporting highlights. Which of the many corporate sponsors will step up and take gold? It requires commitment and investment but there’s a big prize on offer.