Most Sustainable Temporary Ice Rink Ever at the ISU World Short Track Championships 2024 in Rotterdam Ahoy

The Dutch Lottery ISU World Short Track Championships 2024, presented by Odido in Rotterdam Ahoy, will feature the most sustainable temporary ice rink ever used for a World Championship. This is the result of cooperation between several partners committed to making skating more sustainable.

Sustainability is also a hot topic in skating, and the KNSB aims to take the lead in this. “During a marketing sponsor trip to Seattle in 2022, attended by KNSB, Daikin, and Rotterdam Ahoy, we together expressed the ambition to realize the most sustainable temporary ice rink ever for the World Short Track Championships 2024. More partners have since become involved. It’s great that we are actually going to make it happen. Ice rinks are major consumers of energy, and it is our ambition that they will be as CO2-neutral as possible in the future. This is necessary to keep our sport accessible to skating fans. That is what we invest a lot of time, energy, and resources into through various projects and with various partners. The way we are now setting up a temporary ice rink for the Short Track World Championships fits perfectly with this,” says Jeroen Kraaij, Commercial Director of KNSB.

“We love large-scale and unique events, but we also feel a strong responsibility to actively contribute to making sports and events more sustainable. At almost every event we are involved in, there are pioneering innovations and novelties – both in front of and behind the scenes – in the sustainability domain. It is wonderful that a joint effort by all technical parties has now succeeded in achieving a breakthrough in making temporary ice rinks more sustainable,” said Willem Overdiep, on behalf of TIG Sports. “The environmental legislation and event policies of major cities include strict standards when it comes to CO2 emissions. With this innovative way of working, temporary ice rinks in city centers can continue to exist in the future. Based on the old way – with diesel generators – this was unsustainable in the long term.”

Energy Saving
As the proud main sponsor of the KNSB, Daikin is making a substantial operational contribution to the ambitious project. “Compared to the ice surface used at the 2017 World Short Track Championships, the current approach, partly due to the application of our technology, delivers energy savings of up to 85%,” said Edwin Hoogerwerf, Managing Director of Daikin Netherlands.

“Since that last World Cup, a lot has happened at Rotterdam Ahoy in terms of sustainability, including the use of green energy. We are proud that our event location will soon be the stage for the most sustainable temporary ice rink ever at the World Short Track Championships,” said Arnaud Hordijk, Head of Entertainment & Sports at Ahoy.

Other partners involved are Ice-World, the company that builds energy-efficient aluminium ice rink systems worldwide, and MTD, which specializes in the construction and management of temporary (drinking) water and wastewater infrastructure.