Sentosa Golf Club hits carbon-neutral
Sentosa Golf Club has announced that it has become the world’s first carbon neutral golf club.
Club leaders say it achieved net zero carbon dioxide emissions by offsetting 5,000 tonnes of CO2, the annual equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions from 630 residential homes or an average-sized car driving 12.4 million miles.
The Singaporean club, host venue for the LPGA’s HSBC Women's World Championship and set to stage its first LIV Golf event next month, originally committed to becoming carbon neutral in 2021.
Since then, it has invested $1 from every round of golf played into high-quality carbon credits from the Katingan Mentaya Project in Indonesia and Cordillera Azul National Park, between Peru’s high forests and the Amazon basin.
These projects restore and protect degraded forests and swampland, preventing deforestation and the release of harmful CO2 into the atmosphere, while supporting job creation within local communities.
The club’s carbon reduction strategy is part of a wider commitment to raise awareness of the threat of climate change within the global golf community.
Andrew Johnston, Director of Agronomy and General Manager at Sentosa Golf Club, said: “Our considerations have changed more than ever with regards to climate change. The cliff’s edge is in plain view and unless we take action as an industry, the damage will become irreversible.”
Sentosa Golf Club has launched two sustainability campaigns, Keep it Green and GAME ON, and was the first golf club to sign up for the UN Sports for Climate Action initiative in 2020.
As part of these campaigns, single-use plastics have been banned from its Serapong and Tanjong courses and replaced with water stations, saving the equivalent of 150,000 plastic bottles per year.
Investment in a single-head control irrigation system and GPS spraying technology has helped manage water waste and minimize damage from over-fertilization.
The introduction of colonies of stingless bees has enhanced an eco-system that is benefiting wildlife, rare, migratory, and native birds. Energy is being conserved through an all-electric golf cart fleet powered with lithium batteries and car charging stations.
“Ever since we began to share the importance of our sustainability journey back in 2018, we have always been focused on becoming an industry leader and inspiring others to follow suit by implementing eco-friendly initiatives to help reduce our overall carbon footprint. Hopefully this is just the beginning and more clubs around the world will commit to becoming carbon neutral in the near future,” said Johnston.
Sentosa Golf Club is part of the Sentosa Carbon Neutral Network, a business alliance driven by the goal to achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2030 across the island’s hotels, leisure, tourism and transport network.