Dear Hackney Half Marathon,
We are an international running community of over 1,000 members making changes for a fitter planet. Our members love to run at major events such as yours, and we understand that your costs cannot be borne by entrants alone. Hence we appreciate your need to attract sponsors.
The issue we have is the use of sponsors working within the fossil fuel industry – in this case, the sponsorship of the Hackney Half Marathon by Wizz Air. Wizz Air claim to have the lowest airline CO2 emissions in Europe at the same time as promoting their desire to provide everyone, everywhere with flights at the lowest price. Reducing emissions while fuelling demand for cheap flights isn’t the answer. Now is not the time for your event to be a billboard for cheap CO2 emitting flights.
In the face of the climate emergency we need organisations to take a stand and promote a greener future and not be tainted by their association with fossil fuels. Aligning with the right sponsor is critical as the wrong sponsor can easily negate the positive environmental work you’ve achieved. And, of course, it can take valuable time to manage critical comments in the press, social media and communications such as this.
I understand that Wizz Air’s sponsorship may have pre-dated your involvement and hence we are not criticizing you for a decision you may not have taken. However, we urge you not to renew Wizz Air’s sponsorship, sign up to the Game Changer Sponsorship Pledge and make a public statement to this effect.
You can find out more about the Game Changer Sponsorship Pledge here: Sports Sponsorship Pledge — Badvertising (badverts.org).
There will be no Hackney Half Marathon on a dead planet!
Take Action on this issue
You can add your voice to our campaign by contacting the Hackney Half Marathon to ditch the Wizz Air sponsorship. If you think our planet deserves better, use the above text to craft your own email to them. Get in touch with them via [email protected].
