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Mitigation actions in all sectors of society, including sports, to limit global warming have become an increasingly hot topic in public discussions and sports management. However, so far, there has been a lack of understanding and practical examples of how these organizations, especially in team sports, can holistically assess and reduce their climate impacts to achieve carbon neutrality. This paper presents a carbon footprint assessment, implemented actions for GHG emission reduction, and offers the example of a professional Finnish ice hockey team that achieved carbon neutrality. The study is based on a life cycle assessment method. The Results show that the team's carbon footprint was reduced from 350 tCO2eq by more than 50% between seasons 2018-2019 and 2021-2022 in the assessed categories. The most GHG emission reductions were achieved in the team's and spectators' mobility and ice hall energy consumption. Furthermore, the team compensated for their remaining emissions to achieve carbon neutrality. Multiple possibilities for further GHG emission reductions were recognized. The majority of the GHG emissions were linked to the Scope 3 category, indicating that co-operation with partners and stakeholders was a key to success in attaining carbon neutrality. This paper also discusses the possible limitations and challenges that sport organizations face in assessing climate impacts and reducing GHG emissions, as well as the prospects of overcoming them. Since there are many opportunities for sports to contribute to climate change mitigation, relevant targets and actions to reduce GHG emissions should be integrated into all sport organizations' management.

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The climate impacts of biowaste collection and utilisation were assessed based on data from two regional pilots. The EU's waste legislation will require biowaste source separation and collection from detached houses in communities with over 10,000 inhabitants starting from 2024 onwards. Two novel biowaste collection approaches were piloted in two Finnish case regions. One with biowaste collection to larger biolinks with a van and another with composting biowaste bins. The biolink approach reduces the need for waste truck driving, while composting biowaste bins enable an extended collection period. A life cycle assessment method was applied to assess the climate impacts of biowaste collection options and utilisation compared with current practices. The results show that source separation of biowaste and direction to biogas production leads to lower overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at the system level compared with the current waste incineration option. Waste logistics has only a minor role in total GHG emissions, but a system based on biolinks and biowaste collection using a van led to the lowest GHG emission levels. Therefore, from a GHG emissions perspective, encouraging people to source separate their biowaste should be made as easy and encouraging as possible, no matter how the actual logistics is provided. However, novel and improved approaches for source-separated biowaste collection provide the potential for additional GHG emissions reductions.

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Plastics are essential materials for modern societies, but their production contributes to significant environmental issues. Power-to-X processes could produce plastics from captured CO2 and hydrogen with renewable electricity, but these technologies may also face challenges from environmental perspective. This paper focuses on environmental sustainability assessment of CO2-based low-density polyethylene (LDPE) compared to bio-based LDPE. Life cycle assessment has been applied to study climate impacts and land use related biodiversity impacts of different plastic production scenarios. According to the climate impact results, the carbon footprint of the produced plastic can be negative if the energy used is from wind, solar, or bioenergy and the carbon captured within the plastic is considered. In terms of biodiversity, land-use related biodiversity impacts seem to be lower from CO2-based polyethylene compared to sugarcane-based polyethylene. Forest biomass use for heat production in CO2-based polyethylene poses a risk to significantly increase biodiversity impacts. Taken together, these results suggest that CO2-based LDPE produced with renewable electricity could reduce biodiversity impacts over 96 % while carbon footprint seems to be 6.5 % higher when compared to sugarcane-based polyethylene.

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The coronavirus disease COVID-19 has spread worldwide since early 2020, and it has impacted mobility emissions due to mobility restrictions and e.g. increased remote work. This creates a good opportunity to assess how mobility emissions have reduced due to COVID-19. This research is based on data related to mobility distances and modes that have been automatically collected by using a mobile phone application in the city of Lahti, Finland. The results show that mobility decreased in total by approximately 40% during the first wave of COVID-19 in spring 2020. The global warming potential decreased at the same time by approximately 36%. In addition, a considerable shift in modal shares could be seen. The relative modal share of passenger cars increased by 6 percentage points while the share of public transport decreased by 18 percentage points. Despite the considerable reduction, further reductions in emissions from mobility are needed to meet the 1.5 degree climate targets in the urban mobility sector. However, further reductions can be reached also by increasingly using renewable mobility energy sources.

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Beekeeping provides honey, protein-containing drone broods and pollen, and yield-increasing pollination services. This study tested the hypothesis that beekeeping can result in net-positive impacts, if pollination services and protein-containing by-products are utilised. As a case example, Finnish beekeeping practices were used. The study was performed using two different approaches. In both approaches, the evaluated impacts were related to climate change, land use, and freshwater use, and were scaled down to represent one beehive. The first approach considered honey production with pollination services and the replacement of alternative products with co-products. The impacts were normalised to correspond with planetary boundary criteria. The second approach evaluated the impacts of the different products and services of beekeeping separately. In the first approach the honey production system moved towards a safe operational space. Freshwater use was the impact category with the largest shift towards a safe operational space (39% shift). The second approach caused a global warming potential of honey production of 0.65 kgCO2-eq kg-1, when pollen and drone broods were considered as by-products and the influence of pollination services were not included. When honey, pollen, and drone broods were considered as co-products and pollination services were included, the impacts regarding land use and climate change were net-positive. The impact of freshwater use was relatively small. For honey, the impacts on the climate change, land use, and freshwater use were -0.33 kgCO2-eq kg-1, -7.89 m2 kg-1, and 14.01 kg kg-1, respectively. The impact allocation with co-products and pollination services was conclusive. A lack of consideration for the impact reduction of pollination led to beekeeping having a negative impact on the environment. Based on these results, beekeeping enhances food security within planetary boundaries, provided that pollination services and protein-containing by-/co-products are utilised.

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