2021

Melissa’s been a part of the GB Rowing Team since 2014 and in March 2020 was selected in their Olympic Squad for the Tokyo Olympics (prior to its postponement). Since April 2020 she’s worked as part of Champions for Earth to increase the impact that athletes can have on sustainability. Last September she helped mobilise over 300 GB Olympians and Paralympians – including household names like Mo Farah, Paula Radcliffe, Steve Redgrave, the Brownlee brothers and Becky Adlington – in a letter to the PM about a green recovery, and since early 2021 has been working to make Team GB’s participation in the Olympics have a net-positive environmental impact. Her main focus is unlocking the power of athletes as role models for sustainability and advocates for the planet.

“Sustainability and environmental protection are systematically anchored in our DNA. For more than ten years, we have been committed to climate protection in the area of CSR and have set ourselves ambitious goals.”

Nico Briskorn has been working as a sustainability expert at VfL Wolfsburg for more than 10 years. Under his leadership, VfL Wolfsburg became the world’s first football club to publish a GRI-certified sustainability report in 2012. The topics range from climate protection and diversity management to child protection and human rights. In various committees and working groups at national and international level, Nico Briskorn contributes his expertise to sustainable football and plays a key role in the development and establishment of industry standards. For example, clubs in the Bundesliga and 2nd Bundesliga went through the “Sustainclub” label together with VfL Wolfsburg in 2020, the first sustainability standard specifically for football. His team includes five employees. Briskorn graduated in 2004 with a degree in sports science.

Tom Gribbin is the CEO and co-founder of Planet Super League. Tom has twenty years experience in sustainability, new ventures, marketing and innovation. His work focuses on behaviour change and facilitating action. Tom has an MBA from the University of Cambridge and has taught Entrepreneurship in the School of Management at UCL. He also spent five years on the board of Nottingham Forest Community Trust.

Andrew Heyes is a GB International distance runner and current doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham in sport and exercise psychology. A British Champion in the 3000m indoors, Andrew is currently the chair-elect at the UKA Athletes’ Commission and sits on the Athlete Commission at UKAD as well as the Social Science Research Expert Advisory Group at WADA. In addition to his current PhD research, Andrew has an MSc in Psychology, an MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology, an MBA, and an MA in Medical Sciences.

Sofi Armenakian currently works for the Atlanta Hawks and State Farm Arena as the Director of Operations and Sustainability. In this role, she is responsible for the conversion, uniform, housekeeping department as well as the venue’s sustainability operation with a special focus on zero-waste operations. Most recently, she was instrumental in delivering the first-ever zero-waste NBA All-Star Game.
Sofi Armenakian currently works for the Atlanta Hawks and State Farm Arena as the Director of Operations and Sustainability. In this role, she is responsible for the conversion, uniform, housekeeping department as well as the venue’s sustainability operation with a special focus on zero-waste operations. Most recently, she was instrumental in delivering the first-ever zero-waste NBA All-Star Game.

Prior to joining the Hawks, she worked as the Conversion and Sustainability Manager for Mercedes-Benz Stadium as part of AMB Sports & Entertainment. During her time with AMB Sports & Entertainment, she was responsible for managing the operations budget of both the conversion department and the sustainability department. In 2018, she created the sustainability department to help start the venue’s journey to becoming zero waste. Part of the journey was the creation and implantation of “Recycle & Win”, a surprise-and-delight engagement with fans who were seen in the act of recycling while attending the venue. ‘Recycle and Win’ was implemented into all events hosted at Mercedes-Benz Stadium from 2018-2020. These events included Super Bowl LIII, the 2018 MLS Cup and MLS All-Star Games, the 2018 College Football National Championship, all Atlanta Falcons games and all Atlanta United games. In addition, the venue hosted various collegiate bowl games and various concerts.

Sofi is a board member at CHaRM (Center for Hard to Recycle Materials) and volunteers with Trees Atlanta and participates in the Green Sports Alliance. Earlier in her career, she worked for ESSEX Consulting Group Inc. as a business development and marketing director, focusing on data-driven sustainability solutions. Prior to energy consulting, she worked in retail as a general manager, district trainer and recruiter.

Sofi recently hosted the 1st certified TRUE Zero Waste event in the world.

She is also trilingual and speaks English, German and Armenian. She graduated from Georgia State University and is originally from Armenia but calls Atlanta home.

Former professional football player and now co-founder of Hylo Athletics. Hylo is a movement of Athletes for Planet, using materials science to make performance products in a better way.

Dave Lockwood is BBC Sport’s first Editorial Lead for Sustainability, a role responsible for increasing BBC’s audiences engagement and understanding of Environmental issues through sport. Recent projects include: Publication of Premier League Sustainability Tables in partnership with Sport Positive Summit and “Sport 2050” which looked at possible climate impacts on sport 3 decades from now, as well as efforts going on in the here and now to avert them. Prior to this Dave has 25 years experience in the industry, most recently as a Senior Producer with BBC Sport and before that as a Journalist working for BBC News, ITV News and Freelance.