During the preparations for the 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 World Championship, there was always one thought in the back of the minds of the organisation committee members: How can we make this world championship in Basel and Porrentruy as sustainable and energy-efficient as possible? "In total, we found about 15 areas for initial discussion and we are now implementing these", explains Urs Scholl, the OC member responsible for logistics. "Other things came up during the course of the event and we tried to optimise them as they happened."

There are two big topics at the centre of everyone's efforts on sustainability: Transport and water. Teams, officials, volunteers, guests, fans - a world championship in two locations involves moving a lot of people. This has the potential to cause a lot of wasted energy. Several steps were taken to address this. Every ticket and accreditation entitles you to free public transport in the entire tariff area of north-west Switzerland, for example.

"We also realised that if not every team has its own bus, we could help to prevent wasted journeys. A bus might take one team from the hotel to the stadium and bring another team back to the hotel, for example. This requires a bit of planning", says Scholl. Thanks to the support of Ford Switzerland, a long-term partner of Swiss Ice Hockey, electric vehicles have also been provided for the smaller trips of all the "team hosts" - those who look after the little things for each team.

At previous events and world championships, teams' vast water requirements led to enormous demand for PET bottles and a lot of waste as a result. The OC sought a solution for this problem too. This was found in the form of water dispensers and drinking bottles, supplied by BWT Aqua. "We were able to equip all of the teams, changing rooms and volunteer lounges with water dispensers and drinking bottles.

" This should significantly reduce PET consumption. "In particular, teams from other countries used to be concerned about drinking water straight from the tap, even though we assured them that it was fine in Switzerland. The water dispensers enabled us to remove that worry entirely", says Urs Scholl, happily.

Other measures, such as working with stadium catering services on the subject of reusable cups and crockery, or the solar panels on the roof of the ice hall in Porrentruy, which meet 40% of their electricity needs, are helping to make this U18 World Championship in Switzerland as sustainable as possible.

All of the measures have been summarised in a report, accessible to the public at www.saubere-veranstaltung.ch. This transparency is particularly important to Urs Scholl and the OC: "It is even more sustainable for other OCs to benefit from our experience. And especially from those things which may not have worked out for us as we would have liked".