IOC Young Leader Oluseyi Smith On a Mission to Promote Sustainability
March 5, 2021
Team Canada's Oluseyi ‘Seyi’ Smith, a double Olympian (athletics and bobsleigh) and IOC Young Leader, is also a leader on the issue of sustainability. He dreams of a world with zero carbon emissions and is working on a project to achieve zero waste in sport.
With his background in electrical engineering, Smith’s 'Racing to Zero - YYC' project combines sustainability best practices with his expert knowledge in grassroots and volunteer-run athletic meets. He hopes his project will provide tools for sport administrators to make sustainability an easy part of their jobs.
Initially launched in 2016, the IOC Young Leaders programme empowers talents to leverage the power of sport to make a positive difference in their communities. The newly designed 2021-2024 programme launched October 2020 and will see 25 future leaders imagine, design and realise their own sustainable sport-based social business. Over the four years, each participant will receive expert guidance on a range of topics from human-centred design to impact measurement and user testing, as well as seed-funding and peer-to-peer learning opportunities.
"Racing is a nod to athletics, while zero is a reference to the target of zero waste in sport that I want to encourage. The programme will be rolled out in Calgary, and YYC is the International Air Transport Association code for Calgary International Airport," he stated in a past interview with the IOC. The project has a three-pronged approach:
- Reducing the need for single use plastic bottles
- Incentivising local meet directors to consider sustainability in their planning
- Providing a tool to promote the education of all attendees on sport sustainability
The support of key local stakeholders – the City of Calgary, Calgary Track Council, Athletics Alberta, Athletics Canada, the Canadian Olympic Committee and local schools – has been essential in executing the project.
The project has halted somewhat due to COVID-19, but Smith says that at the very minimum he was able to install a water fountain at the track so that when people go there in the summer, they will no longer have to buy plastic bottles and can refill their bottles.
“I’ve had a lot of phone calls and meetings to introduce my project. I think that this will lead to greater awareness about the carbon footprint of future events. I hope I can expand it beyond athletics, and have it effect other sports at grassroots level, to try to create a better environment for the planet,” Smith told Olympic.org.