Sustainable Golf

The Greenkeeping Challenge

Greenkeeping is challenging and rewarding in equal measure. It brings together the management of land, resources and customer expectations to present high quality playing surfaces on great golf courses that contribute to the protection of our natural and cultural heritage.

Greenkeepers make decisions that are significant to the sustainability performance of the industry, and to a large degree determine golf’s reputation as a responsible steward.

BIGGA members support golf clubs by:

• Providing high quality playing surfaces managed for healthy turfgrasses, not the colour of it
• Maintaining stunning golf landscapes that are rich in wildlife
• Reusing waste products and trying to eliminate waste at source
• Working with watersheds and natural ecological processes as far as possible

BIGGA recognises that golf operates in a changing world – where land, water, fossil fuels and biodiversity resources are under pressure. We understand that course managers and greenkeepers have both a responsibility and an opportunity to minimise resource consumption, maximise ecological value and maintain a clean and healthy environment. With industry partners, we promote technological innovation, particularly in turfgrass management, the use of recycled water and renewable energy to reduce further any adverse impacts of course management.

Our members appreciate the need to improve continually their understanding, their performance and their profile as professional land and resource managers, and we are committed to supporting the further development of our members’ knowledge and skills, to continue to act as leaders in sustainable golf.

Action Areas

Working in close partnership with the Golf Environment Organization and others across the industry, BIGGA supports members with guidance, education and recognition - working to make sustainable golf easier to understand and easier to deliver.

BIGGA promotes this agenda, with the belief that practical action in these areas can boost golf’s profile and benefit individual golf clubs.

• Landscape & Ecosystems
• Water
• Energy & Resources
• Products & Supply Chains
• Environmental Quality
• People & Communities

BIGGA recognises that sustainability is a journey rather than a destination, and that greenkeepers can play a leadership role within golf and within local communities.