BT and Ben Ainslie working on climate campaign

British telecommunications giant BT is working with four-time Olympic gold medallist and America’s Cup champion, Sir Ben Ainslie, on a campaign to promote climate action and clean energy projects.

The 100% Sport initiative is designed to bring sport fans together to address climate change and renewable energy.

The campaign is aimed at bringing together the huge fan base of sports and raising awareness of the key issues within the climate change debate including greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

Sir Ben Ainslie (pictured) has been actively involved in environmental campaigns for a number of years and has partnered with 11th Hour Racing, which promotes the health of the marine environment.

Ainslie said: “As a sailor I’m constantly aware of my surroundings. Sailing at venues around the world you get to see first-hand and up-close water pollution. It’s not just something I’ve read about, it’s something I’ve seen and experienced. I’ve also experienced the real power of fans –cheering you on to the finish line, and seeing how they have got behind our race to become a truly sustainable sports team.”

BT has approached their climate change campaign with a bottom-up strategy.

As part of BT’s campaign, fans have been encouraged to tweet at their favourite sports fans to #go100percent and the campaign led to 1.7 million people tuning into BT’s channel.

Niall Dunne, Chief Sustainability Officer at BT, said: “We just kind of looked at that and said, ‘Well, if 10 per cent of those fans actually switched to clean energy, it would be the equivalent to taking 50,000 cars off the road.”

The new campaign is designed to boost sport fans’ enthusiasm and knowledge of renewable energy and BT said that if even 5 per cent of their fans participated in the initiative it could have a significant impact.