Sustainability plans, policies and processes

Initiative description: Developing an action plan to deliver on our sustainability strategy, including responsibilities, key performance indicators and targets for each initiative. The action plan will be designed to address identified risks and opportunities to ensure the achievement of our objectives and prevent or reduce any undesired effects. This initiative will also include the development of an SMS manual with all relevant processes and procedures required to achieve our sustainability strategy and action plan.

In June 2022, the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ became the first FIFA World Cup™ to achieve the ISO 20121 certification, the international standard that sets requirements for developing and implementing an effective management system to deliver a sustainable event. For more information regarding ISO 20121 certification, please visit the sustainability performance monitoring web page of this report.

The development of key plans, policies and processes aimed at maximising the sustainability of the tournament were an important part of the Sustainability Management System and included:

• An organisational Sustainability Policy for FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 LLC (Q22) that was approved in 2019 and reflected how all areas of the Sustainability Strategy applied to Q22.
• A Sustainability Implementation Plan that was finalised in 2019. For each of the initiatives in the strategy, the plan identified responsibilities, the resources needed for delivery, and the key milestones, performance indicators and targets to track progress.
• The definition and publication of sustainability performance targets covering the most critical issues in the Sustainability Strategy. These were formulated based on an evaluation of existing best practices in the industry as well as past performance and experience.
• The integration of sustainability considerations and requirements in the operational planning of all tournament functions during 2019 and 2020. This included the embedding of sustainability requirements and expectations into service levels, temporary infrastructure requirements and equipment.
• 13 Tournament policies and procedures that were developed to guide more sustainable operations covering the following areas: anti-discrimination, human rights grievance mechanism, environment, waste prevention and minimisation, tobacco use and sustainability data gathering.
• The provision of feedback to approximately 115 tournament policies and procedures to influence how operations would be delivered to reduce environmental impacts and protect human rights. Examples of operational areas where policies and procedures were reviewed by the sustainability team included: security, spectators services, ticketing, transport, health & safety, workforce, procurement, and accreditation.
• A Sustainability Management System (SMS) Manual developed in line with ISO 20121. The manual included all relevant processes and procedures to achieve the objectives of the Sustainability Strategy.

In general, through the development of plans, policies and processes, a balance between known constraints and the ambitious aims of teams and partners was sought. Starting the development of the Strategy five years ahead of the tournament enabled the necessary foundation to embed sustainability management into most material areas of operation, as well as having a realistic opportunity to deliver against set objectives and targets.