GironaThe Endesa League starts this Wednesday. The first of the four Catalan teams to play will be Básquet Girona, who will host Real Madrid (9 p.m., #Vamos). Fontajau has sold out all the seats to see the first ACB game in fourteen years. Led by Marc Gasol in the offices, the project is very different from its competitors.
“I try to support and empower the areas we have at the club. I try to be very creative, encourage people to be brave. You have to learn from the rest, but we have to find our own way of doing things. We have to to be brave, make many mistakes and solve them with self-criticism. We can take risks, but if we make a mistake, this does not represent a great expense for us,” says Gasol to ARA, who on Monday was able to solve the problems of incompatibility with his position of president and was registered as a player.
We try not to consume single-use plastics, both us and the fans”
Marc Gasol Basketball Girona
Básquet Girona wants to give as much importance to what happens on the court as to what happens off it, and that is why it has designed an ambitious plan to accentuate its sustainability. “The sporting part has 33% importance. Sport is a tool to educate and demonstrate the values that this club has, which are different. For me it is just as important to win as to offer a good image. We try not to consume single-use plastics, both us and the fans. We want to be a reference. We need vehicles, but we want them to be electric. We want to move sustainably, we don’t want to leave a very big carbon footprint. Sometimes we have to travel by plane or by bus, but we want to compensate to get closer to neutrality. We want to improve the facility. Also, we emphasize social integration, whether with the wheelchair basketball team or actions with others institutions. We are growing a lot and we experience things with great intensity, but the process is very enriching. We devote a lot of effort so that people live an experience beyond the game and adopt good habits,” says Gasol.
The club no longer uses tickets in physical format and, like sports franchises in the United States, uses an app to digitize access to the pavilion. Last season he introduced an osmosis system in the players’ locker room and began using reusable water bottles and lunch boxes. In addition, he replaced plastic bottles with glass in the bar, the box office and the VIP area. The aim is to involve the club with the sustainability objectives promoted by the United Nations.
One of the challenges this season involves obtaining the Sports for Climate Action seal from the UN, which distinguishes entities that commit to adhere to its principles and incorporate them into strategies, policies and procedures and integrate them into the sports community, thus laying the groundwork for wider dissemination of the message and long-term success. In addition, he wants to install a solar panel system in the pavilion for electricity and heating, secure bicycle and scooter parking to promote sustainable mobility, electric chargers in the parking lot and prizes and incentives for all the people who go to Fontajau in a sustainable way.
Girona Basketball players regularly participate in waste collection and the club has put on sale a collection of sweatshirts and T-shirts produced with sustainable organic cotton to take care of the environment.
Open Arms, an inspiration
Being an Open Arms volunteer marked Marc Gasol’s personality. “I maintain a constant relationship with many people from that mission. I’m honest. They helped me a lot. When we arrived in Mallorca we had a psychological support team, but I didn’t need it. Not because I was stronger than the remains, but because the professionals and volunteers at Open Arms already took it upon themselves to help me and make me feel safe, explaining the problem, how to try to solve it, and the challenges we faced. My responsibility is to give them visibility because I saw their work firsthand. Their mentality when faced with a life or death situation is special: they don’t hesitate. And I learned to put a lot of things into perspective. My relationship with them will be forever “.
