We care about the impact we have on the environment and the Lake District - after all, it's where we live and it's our playground too.
Whilst we are making important changes to become more sustainable, our event footprint is small (only 10-20%) in relation to yours by participating and we acknowledge there are always things we can be doing better.
We want to avoid 'greenwashing' just to pay lip service to environmental causes so we're making sure that everything we do is fully thought through to ensure the solution achieves the desired aim - for our events and our competitors to have a lower footprint in terms of emissions and resources.
This may mean initiatives take a bit longer to implement as we take an incremental approach to them, but it should result in a greater impact.
For example, planting trees for the sake of it can lead to minimal gains in biodiversity and sometimes only offer a short-term solution if the trees are felled at a young age.
We carefully researched options before deciding how best to offer our BiodiversiTee initiative.
Our BiodiversiTee initiative (more information below) will mean that we will be ordering fewer t-shirts but inevitably we will have some left over at the end of the events.
These t-shirts are put to good use by CRCL, a charity based in west Cumbria, which promotes cultural awareness by arranging exchange trips for children from Tanzania. When trips to Africa take place, the t-shirts are shipped across with the visitors to be used as team kits for the children playing sport. Some tees also go out to Uganda with one of our runners, Martin Tilbury, to support his charity, The Bumba Foundation which provides education opportunities there.
We also send surplus tees to the Firefighters Charity which helps rehabilitate injured service people.
Nobody likes to see litter on the trails and there's rarely any left by our runners. Despite that, we send a Sweeper around at the back of the course to collect race signage, check gates have been shut and to check for any stray items of rubbish.
Our BiodiversiTee initiative was launched in 2021 and we are delighted to be able to give our runners the option of forgoing an event t-shirt in exchange for a donation to biodiversity initiatives. We also offer runners who complete 5 'BiodiversiTee' races a free entry to a future event.
We've joined up with Cumbria Wildlife Trust and other carefully selected partners with all proceeds going towards projects in and around the Lake District to increase biodiversity, mitigate flooding and increase awareness of issues. As of July 2023, we have donated over £7000 to CWT alone with more donations to follow in the near future.
Other schemes we have funded include:
And there are more projects are in the pipeline. If you know of any local projects which may benefit, please get in touch.
We have invested in chip programming machines so that we only need to produce timing chips for competitors who turn up. This also allows unused race numbers to be used for our Kids' Fun Trails.
We do not publish paper copies of Start Lists or Results in our marquee. Instead, details are available online (including live results) and we email competitors a couple of days before the event so they know their race number.
We phased out single-use plastic cups in 2018 and now only have compostable Bagasse, made from sugar cane and PLA ones, made from corn starch. Whilst they use significantly less energy to produce and aren't oil-based, they still have a CO2 footprint and are only compostable in industrial machiens so runners must provide their own cup / pouch for water at waterstations and in the event village.
We recycle all of the cardboard generated by our events and invest in high-quality products which so they last longer to reduce their impact. We made a simple change to the signs we use to inform the general public about our events so they can be re-used.
All race route and event signage is re-used at following events. Marshal information is laminated so that it can be re-used in future years too.
We have added public transport information to all of our event pages. Everyone who arrives at one of our events by public transport or bike is entered into a draw to win a free place in a future event.
Unlike many other events taking part in the Lake District, we are based in Cumbria and 90% of our expendture straight into the Cumbrian economy. Not only is that good for local businesses but it also reduces the miles driven to the events for things like Portaloos (which come from adjacent to the event ground in Hawkshead) and Marquees and our own equipment.
For 2023, we changed our ice cream vendor to one which manufactures plant-based gelato in Kendal, on the outskirts of the National Park, and which aims to be carbon-neutral by the end of the year. It's just one example of how we are making small changes...but they all add up!
17th August 2023
Why not join our Strava Club to compare your efforts again other Lakeland Trailers? Read more
28th July 2023
Your chance to win a pair of the latest inov-8 shoes Read more
4th April 2023
Encouraging our younger runners to take to the trails Read more