With just one more day of COP28 to go, SailGP’s Global Commercial Director Charlie Dewhurst looks to the immediate future of purpose-driven partnerships.
Partnership and collaboration. Whether you’ve been at COP28, followed it from home or just heard about it in passing, it has been a huge success in demonstrating the power of partnership and collaboration.
Whether it is Jo Aleh sitting next to Eliud Kipchoge or our Chief Purpose Officer Fiona Morgan speaking across countless panels, COP28 has seen huge cross sector organizations come together under one goal ‒ climate action.
SailGP is one of the world’s fastest growing sports properties ‒ across all platforms ‒ and that’s because we’re thinking differently.
For me personally in my role, it’s our partnership model that is different. SailGP is purpose driven and integrating this is at the heart of our partnerships. We start with the collective impact we can have together and build a partnership around that.
I won’t shy away from saying that we’re actively seeking new partners who buy into what we’re doing and our vision for a better future.
I also won’t shy away from saying that there aren’t enough purpose-driven partnerships. We want to change that and set the standard for impact and value.
Our approach is innovative, dynamic and highly valuable to brands ‒ just look at our Race For The Future takeover during our Dubai event at the weekend.
The power of sport is immense. SailGP’s storytelling is compelling and authentic. We’re proud that we have a media platform with a broadcast audience of 200 million, over a million social followers and hundreds of millions of social media video views, delivering class leading return.
This is also an audience that is environmentally aware and active, which is gold for purpose-driven brands.
Our long-term partnerships are always bespoke and rooted in both the impact we can collectively have and delivering business returns. This connects our partners as future-facing change makers, working together to drive change and transform industries.
This isn’t just talk either.
With Kuehne+Nagel we wanted to develop the most sustainable logistics partnership ever with innovative carbon neutral service, ambitious carbon reduction targets and collaborative calendar planning.
SailGP has become an innovation lab for Kuehne+Nagel, where they have trialed new sustainable practices with us and then rolled-out them across their business. Kuehne+Nagel have established themselves as a sustainable logistics leader, appointed by none other than COP28 as its official logistics partner.
Another example is ROCKWOOL ‒ extremely active at COP28 and a valued partner of SailGP.
They have used the platform we offer to promote their work as a committed innovator and a market leader for stone wool insulation, placing 16th in Corporate Knights ranking of the world’s 100 most sustainable organizations and top in their category. At the ROCKWOOL Italy Sail Grand Prix they partnered with One Ocean Foundation to spread awareness on sustainability and protection of the sea, and hosted an Impact Summit
At SailGP we are extremely passionate about using our platform to drive positive change and we cannot wait to welcome partners on our exciting and sustainable growth journey.