About Swimathon

Swimathon is proud to be the world’s largest annual fundraising swim which is hosted at approximately 400 pools across the UK each year. Swimathon 2024 will take place on the weekend of 26 – 28 April, when swimmers will take on challenges ranging from 400m to the 30.9k challenge to raise money for our charity partners, Cancer Research UK and Marie Curie. Swimathon has raised over £55 million in its history and is at the heart of many swimming pools’ annual promotion and marketing campaigns. 

Swimathon recognises its responsibility towards the planet and is committed to doing everything we can to reduce the impact of the event on the environment.
 

Environmental sustainability aims

 To reduce our impact on the environment, Swimathon has the following aims in 2024: 

• Eliminate single use plastic 

• Continue to reduce the quantity of materials produced 

• Use sustainable materials wherever possible 

• Encourage re-use of materials 

• Ensure all recyclable goods are clearly labelled and communicated in the right way to participants/venues 

• Continue to ensure suppliers meet ethical standards of labour, health & safety, environment and business ethics 

• Promote active travel and public transport to all Swimathon 2023 venue-based events  

Swimathon’s environmental impact

Thanks to Swimathon’s emphasis on community, participants are encouraged to take part in a Swimathon challenge at their local pool. This reduces the amount of travel by participants and means that we are using pre-existing facilities. As a result, only a small amount of materials are produced for the event.  

We endeavour to work with partners who are also committed to sustainability; and are working with Swift Event Suppliers, Running Imp and Progression, who will be delivering all items in recycled packaging. 

What items have we produced previously? 

As a reward for completing their Swimathon challenge, all participants receive a swim cap and medal. These are not individually wrapped and are packaged on mass. In addition to this, we reward those participants who fundraised £300 or more with an exclusive Swimathon towel. All pools who take part in Swimathon receive a pack of marketing materials to help promote the event and some materials to assist with running their sessions on the day.

What is the impact of these materials?

All items produced for Swimathon have been audited to assess the following: 

• Modes of transport used

• Packaging and merchandise materials

• Quantities

What have we done to reduce the impact in 2024?

Transport

Where materials are being produced abroad, they will be ordered in advance to ensure they can be shipped to the UK. By choosing to ship items, we can ensure we reduce carbon emissions by avoiding air freight which has a significantly higher environmental impact. We will also be providing a reduced entry price offering for 2024 to incentivise our participants to use active travel to their Swimathon event.

Plastic 

We have eliminated non-recyclable single-use plastic. All materials will now be packed in either recyclable or biodegradable packaging which will be clearly marked with recycling instructions. Where possible, we have removed packaging entirely. We have removed stickers and balloons from our marketing materials, leaving just a single banner (two banners at gala venues) which is 100% recyclable. It is important we continue with some physical presence at our Swimathon venues to ensure our promotion is inclusive for all audience groups.

Waste 

We continue to review our order quantities each year on Swimathon. 

In order to reduce waste, we have identified ways to encourage re-use of our materials (for example in 2023 we will no longer be dating our Swimathon Towel) and how to reduce the number of materials produced. We will focus on producing high quality digital materials to promote Swimathon and providing fewer physical items. In comparison to 2023.

We have reduced our order of swim caps in 2024 compared with 2023 to avoid wastage and align with expectation of participant numbers in response to the pandemic. Participants will be encouraged to re-use their swim caps, these should not be used as one-off items. Pools will be encouraged to donate any leftover materials to swim schools or clubs. The swim caps are one of the few materials that are dated with the year due to the unique nature of Swimathon.

We have reduced the quantity of participant t-shirts ordered by 60% in comparison to 2021. In a change to the historical fundraising incentive scheme, t-shirts will only be available for purchase (with at least 50% of every purchase going to charity) and will be re-ordered as needed to avoid ordering unnecessary stock, similar to the top fundraising towels.

We have reduced our towel order by 15% in 2024 compared with 2023 and have removed the year so they can be reused.

Ethical Standards 

We will continue to liaise with suppliers to ensure they meet ethical audit formats, which ensure they reach an accepted standard of corporate social responsibility.

Recycling

All materials will be clearly labelled and accompanied by clear recycling instructions for participants and our Swimathon Directors to ensure that nothing goes to landfill. 

For more information on our environmental actions, please contact the Swimathon team on info@swimathon.org.