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Environmental awareness in Finnish ice hockey

Finnish Hockey team Lahti Pelicans strives to be the world’s first carbon-neutral ice hockey team. The players of the Pelicans team are involving attitude change and boosting environmentalism in Lahti by replacing their regular player numbers with environmental facts. The Lahti Pelicans played from January to March with the special jerseys to celebrate Lahti's European Green Capital 2021 Year.
The ice hockey team and the city of Lahti debuted the jerseys on the 161.2021, at Lahti Pelicans’ home arena. The shirts were seen for the last time on the ice on Saturday 20.3.2021. Instead of conventional advertising on the back of the hockey jerseys, they are educational and raise awareness on environmental milestones and the green history of Lahti. The shirts have been auctioned off collecting a total of €13,935. The proceeds support the Pelicans' junior operations. The highest bid was made from the shirt of the team captain. However, one shirt was not auctioned and kept as memorabilia.
Some of the players and their environmental statistics were:

● Jasper Patrikainen, 70% – 70% of emissions cut since 1990
● Ryan Lasch, 2019 – Coal-free city since 2019
● Niclas Almari, 2025 – Lahti will be climate neutral by 2025
● Waltteri Merelä, #9% – 99% waste recovery rate in the Lahti area

Going green also fully extends beyond just jerseys as the Pelicans no longer fly to games and encourage fans to take public transit, bike or walk to their ice hockey games.

The Pelicans influences locally and globally with a wide range of communication network.
Lahti Green Capital funded the jerseys. LUT University of Applied has helped the club finding ways to reduce emissions and reach the carbon neutral goals.

The team has reduced emissions, the restaurants at the arena offer locally produced food and plastic-free packaging. The arena utilizes renewable energy. In 2013, The arenas emissions were 700 CO2 tons, currently, 200 tonnes and are predicted to fall to 50 tonnes within a couple of years.

Lahti city has reached a deal that allows citizens to travel by bus with a discount ticket of 2€ to all the matches in 2021. Furthermore, there are various events that aim of reducing private motoring.

Pelicans' biggest challenge and source of emissions is specifically transportation of the fans, which generates more than two-thirds of Pelican's total carbon footprint. What follows are the electricity and heat of the ice rink and the transportation and footprint of players and staff members.

The Lahti Green Capital 2021 project has four main themes, one of which is the inclusion and involvement of citizens. That's what a carbon-neutral hockey team is great for. Furthermore, Lahti loves ice hockey and has the largest hockey junior organisation in Europe, with 1500 teens.

With the help of the ice hockey team, the city can communicate in a unique way to citizens about the importance of minimizing emissions and personal carbon footprint. When one Finn has a carbon footprint of about 10 tonnes per year, the Pelicans ice-hockey team corresponds to the footprint of 50 Finns according to research from LUT University of Applied Sciences. As zero-emission is almost impossible to reach, the final emissions must be compensated by current actions of funding reforestation and the protection of old forests.