32// UTMB's Dacia Sponsorship Dilemma Unveils Clash of Values

On when growth meets environmental values

Hey pals,

Thank you for all the people that responded to last weeks call out for voices from the brand side of trail running! I’ve had some truly eye-opening conversations with many fascinating people.

If you want to actually chat in person, I’ll be in Chamonix between the 30th -1st Sept next week. It’ll be my first time in Cham so please send me all your recommendations - I’d love to see you there! (I even printed stickers out as my first attempt at merch)

To this week’s post. The Dacia deal left an indelible impression on the trail running community, so I had a chat with Frederic Lenart, CEO of UTMB Group, to hear his side of the story.

Hope you enjoy this one,

Matt

Days after Dacia had signed the title sponsorship of UTMB Mont Blanc, professional trail runners were pinging messages back and forth across WhatsApp voicing their opinions on the deal.

Dozens of athletes from Damian Hall, Francesco Puppi and Hillary Gerardi all questioned the deal.

Soon after words were shared in private, athletes began to start making them public.

Damian Hall, Jasmine Paris and Andy Symonds, all co-founders of Green Runners, released a statement and launched a petition calling for UTMB to cancel the sponsorship.

After announcing he wouldn’t be competing in UTMB due to injury, Killian Jornet posted an Instagram story referencing how much Chamonix has been impacted by climate change and that if trail running has a choice, it should consider the future of it’s current actions.

The title sponsorship deal has ignited a tension between professional athletes and UTMB weeks before the World Series Finals kick-off. More broadly, it has brought UTMB’s environmental commitment into question despite years of investment into measuring and reducing it’s carbon footprint.

Frederic Lenart, General Manager of UTMB Group, was keen to state in an interview this week that the Dacia deal has allowed UTMB to increase the number of buses transporting participants across the course and that they’re taking additional actions such as eliminating single use cutlery to reduce waste. “We are considered a leader in terms of sustainable initiatives” claimed Frédéric Lénart, “for instance, we have withdrawn all the disposable kitchen tools there won't be any plastic bottles on aid stations - we have a collective transportation plan for the UTMB. And it has been increased this year with more than 150 to transport the runners and the  accompanying people to the aid stations. Some roads at our UTMB World Series Finals (that is to say UTMB, CCC and OCC race) and for other races as well in the UTMB week will be closed to individual cars and so on.”

UTMB group have been striving to improve their environment impact for years. In 2017 they partnered with the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) in a pact to train their staff to become environmental ambassadors, implement additional sustainable development work and measure the environmental impact of their event, which they did do in 2019.  They even have two employees dedicated to improving the event’s environmental footprint.

In Doug Mayer’s recent book on the history of UTMB, he writes about Michel Poletti’s drive to reduce and offset the carbon impact of participants in their events  and even spitballs ideas on carbon calculators to make entrants more aware of their footprint. “He [Michel] anticipates the addition of carbon calculator to the race registration pages and imagines a day when runners might enter a “red zone” with their carbon emissions, at which point they would be required to pay an offset”.

The UTMB Group has always had the desire and taken the necessary steps to increase the sustainability of their event series. The Dacia deal seems out of place in this context. It represents the collision of the desire for exponential growth and environmental values.

For Frederic Lenart, the deal was a positive step for UTMB in their attempts to attract non-endemic sponsors. “we have a lot of discussions now we have almost all the endemic [sponsorship] categories covered. We’re developing the non-endemic categories. Dacia is one of them. But we have a lot of discussions in these non-endemic categories because trail running is fast growing.”

In their meetings with Dacia, the car company reassured Frederic about their environmental commitment referring to their philosophy of developing economical cars through removing superfluous additions and their extensive electric and hybrid range. Their removal of chromium from their cars left a significant impression on Frederic as a demonstration of Dacia’s desire to cut everything that is not necessary to the functioning of the car.

According to Carine Gailliez, VP of Dacia brand marketing communication, Dacia was approached by several partners, but their shared beliefs of "very strong outdoor values" and "solidarity and inclusion" with UTMB, as well as the fact that France was a strong strategic market for them, clinched the deal.

Frederic left the meetings feeling confident that Dacia shared their values and would be a great partner in furthering their environmental agenda.

What this reasoning ignores is that Dacia, like every car company, is a significant contributor to climate change and their best selling vehicle is an SUV. Having a car company as the headline sponsor of the biggest event in trail running sets a dangerous precedent.

What was also ignored was the trail running community and the pro athletes that make UTMB race an entertaining product. Many athletes, from Killian Jornet, Hilary Gerardi, Xavier Thévenard and many more have all been vocal campaigners in the environmental movement for many years. It wouldn’t be a bold or insightful statement to say that due to our close proximity to nature, trail runners are very conscious of the effects of global warming on their natural environment.

Considering this it’s hard to see how this deal benefits anyone but UTMB and Dacia.

The case could be made that if you add up all the car journeys prevented by Dacia’s fleet of buses, cars, and the carpooling scheme, there might be a carbon saving over UTMB week. However you then have to contend with the long term effects of promoting SUV’s through advertisements and sponsorships and the amount of cars purchased as a result. To make matters worse UTMB have not placed any controls on what Dacia promotes in their contract, as shown in the runners guide published last week where the only ad for Dacia is promoting the Dacia Duster, an SUV.

The Green Runners and Pro Trail Runners Association have both had separate calls with UTMB this week to discuss the deal. Damian Hall came out of the Green Runners discussion unsatisfied and felt UTMB were unlikely to shift their stance in the near future. Albert Jorquera, General Secretary of the PTRA, claimed they had a positive discussion with UTMB and that they are debating internally whether to do a final announcement.

I’d like to come back to something Killian said in his instagram story - if we have a choice, we should think about the future.

UTMB had a choice. They didn’t need a title sponsor. They didn’t need to settle on Dacia. They don’t need to grow as quickly as they are (no one is chasing you UTMB, you can slow down now).

They wanted extra capital to turn a profit this year and Dacia came knocking. Without any media rights deals coming their way, UTMB group have to settle on growth via sponsorship revenue and incremental gains from efficiently operating events at scale.

UTMB chose growth without considering the consequences of their actions.