VfL wins Responsible Sports Award

VfL Bochum 1848 has received an award for good organisational management. The Responsible Sports Conference was held in Berlin at the end of April. As part of this event, VfL Bochum 1848 has been honoured with the “Responsible Sports Award” in the “Governance” category.

Having already become the first Bundesliga football club and the first sports organisation in Germany ever to submit a declaration of conformity with the Sports Governance Code in March of this year, the award is the next success for good as well as sustainable corporate governance.

With the award, the Sports Governance organisation has honoured those teams that have excelled in promoting sustainability in sports as well as in implementing good organisational or corporate governance. In addition to “Governance”, prizes were also awarded in the areas of “Ecological Sustainability”, “Social Responsibility” and “Grassroots Sports”.

The awards were presented for the first time this year. Prizes were awarded not only for individual activities, but also for comprehensive management of the respective organisation and its relations with various stakeholders. Ilja Kaenzig, spokesman for the management of VfL Bochum 1848, was on hand to receive the award in person. “The award is a strong sign for the holistic and sustainable development of VfL. We have both the social and environmental components in mind, but also corporate and economic sustainability,” says Ilja Kaenzig, Commercial Director of VfL Bochum 1848.

In addition to VfL, other winners include ALBA BERLIN Basketballteam (“Social Responsibility”), Hessischer Tennisverband (“Ecological Sustainability”) and FC Internationale Berlin 1980 (“Grassroots Sports”). VfL Bochum 1848 congratulates all the winners.

The awards are linked to a special prize donated by blue-planet Investments. For one year, the water consumption of all winners will be compensated by 120 percent. This means that for every litre of water consumed by the respective award winner, 1.2 litres of purified and clean drinking water will be returned to people suffering from water shortages. Alongside “energy”, “waste” and other important topics, the area of “water” is in any case in the focus of VfL’s blue-white sustainability strategy, specifically through the ongoing “Life Cycle Assessment” project.

Dr. Alexander Juschus, Chairman of Sports Governance said: “We are very pleased that the topics of sustainability and governance in sports are becoming increasingly important and accepted. We are particularly proud that, despite the overwhelming visibility and dominance of soccer in Germany, we are able to honour two award winners who come from other sports. For the future, however, we would like to see even greater diversity among the nominated sports organisations.”