Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore has announced that it has become the world’s first carbon neutral golf club, delivering on a commitment made during golf’s HSBC Women’s World Championship in 2021.
As part of its sustainability commitment, and to complement ongoing carbon abatement efforts identified during its carbon profiling, the Club has offset 5,000 tonnes of CO2, the annual equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions from 12.4m miles driven by an average petrol-powered car and CO2 emissions from 630 homes’ energy usage [1].
Since April 2021, the Club has with the support of its members set aside $1 from every round of golf to procure high quality carbon credits from the Katingan Mentaya Project (Indonesia) and Cordillera Azul National Park (Peru).
The Cordillera Azul National Park project helps restore degraded forestry, preventing 25.2 million tonnes of carbon being released into the atmosphere to date, as well as supporting 665 jobs in the local community, 40% of which are held by women; whilst the Katingan Mentaya Project protects more than 150,000 hectares of peat swamp forest, generating 7.5 million carbon credits; its impact is equivalent to removing two million cars off the road each year.
Following on from its initial pledge, Sentosa Golf Club’s efforts to achieve carbon neutrality formed part of its commitment to the UN Sports for Climate Action Race to Zero initiative, as well as the Sentosa Carbon Neutral Network, with a number of steps taken to compensate its carbon footprint, all under the umbrella of its sustainability campaign, GAME ON.
The Club was also the first in Asia to introduce carbon products in the form of Biochar into their agronomy programme to help remove more carbon from the atmosphere.
Other initiatives, pioneered over a decade of work, were identified to help with the reduction of scope 1-3 carbon[2], including a state-of-the-art irrigation system and agronomy equipment that creates efficiencies and minimises product wastage seen by over fertilisation and watering.
The introduction of an all-electric golf cart fleet powered with lithium batteries, car charging stations and waste digesters, also helps to grind down food and horticultural waste to reuse as fertiliser on the golf course. Further initiatives were also introduced to increase energy efficiency, resulting in the Clubhouse being awarded the Green Mark Certification.
These complement other on-course efforts that saved over 300 different species of trees during the redevelopment of the Club’s Tanjong course, and the introduction of stingless bee colonies on-site that thrive in an ecosystem alongside otters, peacocks, long-tail macaques and other migratory and native birds. Endangered mangrove species situated in The Serapong Lagoon and heritage sites such as Fort Berhala Reping have also been preserved within the natural landscape of the golf courses.
Related: Szokol shines against galaxy of stars to set early pace
On achieving the carbon neutrality goal, General Manager and Director of Agronomy, Andrew Johnston highlighted the importance of this historic milestone for the golf industry, saying: “We are proud to see that Sentosa Golf Club has achieved/become the world’s first carbon neutral golf club and are extremely proud of this achievement. Ever since we began to share the importance of our sustainability journey back in 2018, we have always been focused on becoming an industry leader and inspiring others to follow suit by implementing eco-friendly initiatives to help reduce our overall carbon footprint. Hopefully this is just the beginning and more clubs around the world will commit to becoming carbon neutral in the near future.”
Sentosa Golf Club joins others in the sporting world, such as English Football League side, Forest Green Rovers, who became the world’s first carbon neutral football club, with the likes of Formula 1 and World Athletics both making carbon neutral pledges in recent years.
