By Anders Lorenzen

The company behind SUV electric vehicle racing has won a major sustainability and sports award.

At this year’s Sports Industry Awards, Extreme E’s electric off-road racing championship was crowned the winner of the Sport Industry’s first Environmental Sustainability Award. Launched this year, this award recognises organisations that are delivering environmental benefits through sport.

Held at Evolution London on the 12th of May, the awards ceremony celebrated the work carried out across the sports sector towards social change. 

Using racing to raise awareness about the climate crisis

A delighted Alejandro Agag, Founder and CEO of Extreme E, said: “It is a tremendous honour to be the recipient of the first-ever Environmental Sustainability Award. It gives real recognition to everyone who has helped to play a part in launching and delivering our pioneering series – it is great to see our visions from the very beginning become a reality. We cannot wait to go even further in raising awareness of the climate crisis and how to deliver environmental change.”

Adding to this, Ali Russell, Chief Marketing Officer at Extreme E, said: “I am looking forward to Extreme E growing even further in the years to come as we continue to raise awareness across the world of the critical environmental issues facing our planet.”

Highlighting climate impacts in vulnerable environments around the world

Extreme E, not to be confused with Formula E, is a radical new racing series in which SUVs compete in extreme environments around the world impacted by the climate crisis,!thereby highlighting the scale of climate impacts.

According to the organisers, the five stages of the race highlight the impact of climate change as well as the human impact in some of the world’s most remote locations. 

Breaking from other spectator driven sports, Extreme E the races are not open to spectators – instead fans are encouraged to follow the action broadcast live on TV as well as social media channels in order to minimise the local impact.  

In another environmental initiative by the company, the former passenger-cargo ship, St. Helena has undergone a huge and costly retrofit to serve as the company’s operations hub. The ship will be utilised to transport the championship’s freight and infrastructure including the vehicles to the nearest port, minimising the environmental and carbon footprint of the travel. In addition, it will also be used to carry out scientific research through an on-board laboratory.

Extreme E feels they’re playing a big role in the transition to zero-emission energy by pioneering fuel cell technology in their race fleet. Their innovative technology developed by the company AFC Energy uses water and sun to generate hydrogen power enabling them to not create any emissions where the technology is used with the only by-product being water.

The second season of Extreme E kicked off in February this year in NEOM, Saudi Arabia, and will culminate in Punta del Este, Uruguay in November. Extreme E says they will continue to deliver a graphical storytelling concept that combines sport and scientific stories to highlight the planet’s situation.