BRITA x LTA 🤝
This month it was announced that BRITA will become the LTA’s official hydration and water partner. The partnership will see BRITA serve refreshing filtered H20 across the LTA’s ATP and WTA events in Nottingham, Birmingham, Eastbourne and the Queen’s Club in London via BRITA dispensers and refillable bottles to players, officials, and ticket holders, with refill stations courtside, in player lounges, and in public areas. This will provide all in attendance with the opportunity to reach for the reusable whilst rejecting the need for harmful single-use plastic bottles.
Proud to be the first non-single-use water brand to sponsor British tennis 🎾
The agreement marks a major milestone for promoting sustainability in British tennis and UK sport, scoring points for both the LTA and BRITA as they commit to smashing single-use plastic from major sporting. Indeed, sporting events represent a fantastic medium through which we can demonstrate the potential positive impact of sustainable drinking alternatives, which simultaneously encourage healthy drinking habits and respect the environment.
BRITA is now the first ever non-single-use water brand to sponsor British tennis. The move from single-use-plastic container water to BRITA water will result in removing the distribution of 100,000 single-use plastic bottles from this year's tennis tournaments, also saving 11.9 million g CO2e or the equivalent of 297,500 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle.
Sustainability in Sports ♻️
However, without behaviour change, it is estimated that an additional 413 million single-use-plastic bottles will be sold over the next five years (2022-2026) as a direct result of marketing tricks. At BRITA we recognise the positive halo effect that marketing and advertising tactics have on polluting Big Water brands. Our partnership with the LTA, therefore, strives to help shift positive sponsorship associations to sustainable brands, transforming the conversation around sustainability in sports and highlighting sustainable alternatives as viable options.
In the UK each year, 5.5 billion plastic bottles escape recycling. Of these bottles, 55% are incinerated and 45% are landfilled. This horrifying statistic helps to drive home the current scale of the plastic pollution crisis in the UK. Last year a report by Retail Economics, commissioned by BRITA, WDC and Refill found that 70% of adults in the UK would prefer to use a reusable water bottle if it was easier to refill in public. Despite the disheartening extent of the plastic problem there still clearly exists a strong appetite to create positive change throughout society amongst consumers.
However, this underlying willingness to reach for reusable alternatives and protect the environment requires strong and continued leadership from industry.
Sustainable sipping 💧
At BRITA we therefore believe it is our responsibility to remain proactive and inspire positive behaviour change wherever possible. Our new partnership with the LTA is a fantastic example of how we continue to use our position as the UK’s leading expert on sustainable drinking solutions to popularize sustainable alternatives to single use plastic bottles, thus mitigating the impact of plastic waste on the natural environment.
Overall, the key to creating long lasting and impactful change is to tap into the collective willingness to create positive change that already exists amongst consumers. BRITA strongly believes that the vast majority of consumers are actively environmentally conscious, and we're here to serve up sustainable solutions, game, set, match!
