Green stadiums for a promising future

Be a model to be followed in the world of football is not be a novelty for Brazil. The difference is that, now, the host country of the next edition of the FIFA 2014 World Cup, leads also the destiny of the sport outside the rectangle of the game King. With innovative measures in the field of sustainability, the hosts are forging new patterns for the next world, and before the eyes of the world are providing solutions to a complicated equation: moving guidelines designed specifically for the tournament to sound national policies, which let a real legacy for the population once completed the contest.

During the presentation of the strategy of sustainability for the tournament in 2014 Brazil in "Rio + 20", the Conference of FAO for sustainable development, FIFA, the Local Organizing Committee (COL) and the Government of Brazil discussed the negative and positive impacts of the event. The meeting served to reveal what should be the major goal of the Organization: "green stage". In other words, it is expected all World Cup football campuses to obtain the certificate LEED (leadership in energy and environmental design English acronym).

"This was not a requirement of FIFA." "It was a proposal ours, proof that all sites have the same concern for the environmental issue", said Luis Fernandes, Executive Secretary of the Brazilian Ministry of sport. "Our goal is to promote economic growth along with environmental preservation and reduction of inequality and poverty." Put the cup of 2014 in that context is fantastic, because House with an effort that Brazil was already under way. "We want to demonstrate that it is possible to reconcile development with sustainability, and hosted the Cup is a great opportunity to draw the attention of the world on this issue."

Unstoppable advance
Federico Addiechi, head of Corporate Social responsibility of FIFA, praised the Brazilian idea of building sustainable stadiums, an initiative that must be retaken by Russia and Qatar, hosts of the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup respectively. "We are going to reach billions of people around the world, and this is not only an opportunity to prove that Brazil can arrange the best World Cup of all time, but also the show that football is not separate from the question of sustainability, we have a responsibility and we are assuming it, we want to contribute to this cause." The example of the certificate was a breakthrough that has been adopted by the next organizers and which will be carried out; It is a process that has been launched and there will be no stopping him. "Everyone has to do their part," claimed Addiechi.

Bebeto, world champion in 1994 and current Member of the Board of Directors of the COL, recalled that, if football is usually an opportunity to life for thousands of young Brazilian who dream of looking beyond the borders of their homeland, the Organization of the world in the national territory will offer new opportunities for the domestic population outside of the playing fields. "Sustainability is not only to the environment." The strategy includes removing children from the streets, train young people and involve them in the process. "Many people will have work thanks to the Cup, and many lives will change to better thanks to football, as it changed mine," he warned.

There was no shortage references to football during the meeting. "For an Argentine, it is difficult to talk about who is going to win the Cup here, but it is a pleasure to be part of the effort to Brazil for hosting the world, and I want to help as can be to the success of the country", he said between Addiechi jokes. Fernandes, for his part, has no doubts about who will come out victorious, regardless of what happens in the field. "Brazil will emerge as one country larger than it is today," he said. "The FIFA World Cup has given us the possibility of directing investment and do things that otherwise we would take decades to carry out." "Almost all areas of the Brazilian economy may benefit from the Cup".