The Voyonic Grampian Forest Rally will partner with Carbon Positive Motorsport to provide carbon offsetting for all competitors and organisers event vehicles, as part of a long-term roadmap and commitment to mitigate the events carbon footprint.
The event joins several UK events this year who have chosen as part of their environmental plans to take steps to mitigate its carbon footprint by using high-quality UK sourced and certified carbon offsetting projects.
The company who are the first company in the world to offer dedicated carbon offsetting services exclusively for motorsport, provides carbon offsetting for all motorsport events, teams, competitors, and spectators, and will provide carbon positive levels of offsetting for all the rally organisation vehicles and competitors as part of their entry, in a first for UK motorsport.
Carbon Positive Motorsport was launched last year at the 2021 Grampian Rally and has provided offsetting to competitors at all levels of the sport, including current British Rally champion Matt Edwards, former champion David Bogie, and current BRC championship front runners Garry Pearson, and Osian Price, each of whom have become brand ambassadors for Carbon positive Motorsport and are supporting the adoption of carbon offsetting within rallying, as part of the solution to reduce the sports environmental impact.
The Carbon Positive Motorsport initiative has since its launch generated large interest in the sport - as competitors and events across all motorsport disciplines, have started to recognise and act on the environmental needs of the sport, to ensure that motorsport and the environment are sustainable for future generations to enjoy.
The event will benefit from a level of carbon offsetting that will provide 25% more carbon offsetting in the future than is generated today through the average fuel use associated with their participation on the event day.
By only using the highest possible quality of 100% UK based carbon offsetting projects which generate carbon reduction in the future through rewilding, greater environmental benefits such as restoration of ancient woodlands, and the reintroduction of native species of trees and animals to improve biodiversity, will result in greater positive environmental impact than by offsetting alone.
Stringent verification processes assure genuine and greater long-lasting impact than for typical commercial carbon offsetting schemes, which often use low cost and quality overseas projects, or abatement schemes which generally replace future carbon emissions rather than sequester and capture the existing carbon in the atmosphere.
All carbon offsetting for this year’s event will be registered on the UK Land registry in the name of the event and organising club, which ensures traceability of the total carbon emissions that will be offset.
To further reduce the events environmental impact, Carbon Positive Motorsport are also offering all Grampian Forest Rally competitors and spectators a 20% discount on their standard web shop prices, to encourage all travelling to the event to help bring a greater positive environmental impact.
The initiative forms the first step of a partnership that will help create an environmental road map for the event, to progressively reduce and further offset the events footprint. Local carbon offsetting projects based in the Highlands and Tayside, which have been developed together with their offsetting partner Highland Carbon will be used to provide the events offsetting.
Additionally, the company is donating 10% of their sales profits to support motorsport organisations in the Ukraine, who are providing humanitarian aid to people who have been devastated by the current war through a collaboration with championship winning Ukrainian co driver Juliya Yefymova.
Scottish championship competitor and Carbon Positive Motorsport ambassador John Wink will be supporting the event as one of the event sponsors.
Clerk of the course Graham Provest said
‘’The Voyonic Grampian Forest Rally is proud to be minimising the event’s environmental impact by partnering with Carbon Positive Motorsport. We of course recognise the need to address the effect motorsport has on the environment and thanks to their programme of UK-based offset projects, we can ensure that we can begin a fully targeted approach. By the very nature of the event, we of course rely on the forests in the region to be able to host the rally and ensuring we leave as little footprint behind us as possible is a vital step in securing the longevity of the rally and our sport.”
Carbon Positive Motorsport director, Paul Glass said
‘We are delighted to support the Voyonic Grampian Forest Rally. The event celebrates one year since we launched and will be the second BRC event, and the first SRC event to benefit from a new package we are offering for rallies, that uses our unique database of rally car fuel consumption, which has been developed based on actual competition consumption figures to create an average figure that we can apply and offset.
We have been working with events and competitors feedback to create an ‘end to end’ event carbon offsetting package – which is all about creating the easiest and most affordable way for an event to make the biggest positive carbon offsetting impact, and to help an event to strengthen and sustain motorsport within their local communities.
We are a purpose lead business – run by competitors and motorsport professionals who are genuinely passionate about motorsport and the environment. Our sole purpose is to help protect motorsport and the environment – making both sustainable for future generations to enjoy, with an affordable, and easy to use high quality offsetting service - It does not cost a lot to make a big difference’’
A special discount code (GR22S) has been created to use on Carbon Positive Motorsports online sales platform, which will be available for all competitors and spectators to use to carbon offset their event related travel.
