Supporting local cooperation

Preserving local playing fields to have a long-term positive impact on the region is a key priority for new Decathlon locations. Our subsidiarity strategy (autonomy, responsibility and freedom) promotes local engagement, the implementation of environmentally-friendly local initiatives and a community-building role for each site.

Through our efforts to raise awareness about sustainable development – holding events where we help clean up local sports fields and assessing the impact our stores have on their surroundings – Decathlon helps ensure that future generations can enjoy sport and strengthens our ties with our neighbours. This encourages teammates and sports users to put the fifth pillar of our Decathlon Vision into practice: “Preserving the planet and its inhabitants to protect our purpose.”

2018 ESSENTIALS

Decathlon pivoted to more localised store management.

We added new initiatives for cleaning up local sports fields.

We expanded our efforts to measure the social impact of our corporate activities on local communities.

Local teammates and stakeholders were encouraged to make tangible contributions to sustainable development.

MAINTAINING OUR PLAYING FIELDS

By maintaining clean sporting environments, we are ensuring that future generations can play sport and stay healthy. Decathlon teams the world over engage in a range of initiatives that combine sport and simple habits that everyone can adopt.

World Clean Up Day (15 September 2018), one of the biggest civic initiatives in the world, encourages people around the globe to pitch in on the same day to help clean up the planet. In 2018 over 20,000 participants from inside and outside the company collected 73 tonnes of waste at 350 sites in 31 countries where Decathlon operates.
Eco-Hike Day (2 June 2018): With the help of 130 stores in France, 2,500 hikers collected 3.5 tonnes of waste from 445 km of trails. In addition to our clean-up efforts, we set up workshops to help people understand sustainable development issues. This event earned Quechua the prize for “sporting event of the year” from Stratégies magazine.
Earth Hour (24 March 2018): 90 Decathlon stores in Spain turned off their exterior lights for one hour. Teams from WWF were on hand to teach people about climate change and to explain how it affects sports facilities.

“The results of world clean up day and the feedback from our teams have been a source of joy and pride. Over 60 participants spent two hours picking up rubbish outdoors. In the end we filled three magnums with just what we found around the northampton warehouse.”

THE COMMUNICATIONS TEAM AT THE NORTHAMPTON WAREHOUSE IN ENGLAND

LOCAL SPORTING EVENTS: MAKING SPORT ACCESSIBLE TO ALL

When Decathlon holds an event, it helps us connect to the community, build trust in our products and make sport accessible locally. There are three types of sporting events:

Product tests that take place in our stores and simulate actual use conditions;
Sporting events where people can learn about and try out different sports by using our products in real-life conditions;
Vitalsport events, where people can try between 10 and 45 sports over the course of one or two days , usually the second weekend in September.

To boost our teammates’ knowledge and give them more autonomy, we offer a day of training and practical tools: a customisable communication kit, technical safety data sheets and more. Teams can also use a dedicated site to interact with participants and spread the word about their sporting events.

In 2018 Decathlon stores in France held 5,632 sporting events attended by 21,240 people. And 114 stores held Vitalsport events, attended by a total of 565,000 visitors.