WBSC Partners with Alibaba Cloud for Sustainability Drive

The WBSC Baseball5 World Cup, taking place in Türkiye from 10-15 October, will be the first event to implement Alibaba Cloud’s sustainability initiatives

Lausanne, Switzerland, 9 October, 2023 – The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), the international governing body for baseball and softball, announced it has chosen Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, as its dedicated sustainability partner for Baseball5.

Under the collaboration, both parties will work together to develop tailor-made sustainable products, services and solutions, aiming to make WBSC events more eco-friendly. This cooperative effort is part of the WBSC's ongoing commitment to achieve its sustainability targets, a key component of the Confederation’s Strategic Plan 2022-2028 that aims to utilise baseball/softball as a catalyst for sustainability and social development.

The WBSC Youth Baseball5 World Cup, taking place in Türkiye from 10-15 October, will be the first event to implement Alibaba Cloud’s sustainability initiatives. These measures will calculate the carbon footprint generated from various sources, including venue operation, temporary structure materials, accommodation and catering, participants' business flights and local commute, as well as the transportation of sport materials and equipment.

The carbon footprint computation, powered by Alibaba Cloud’s AI-driven sustainability solution, Energy Expert, will provide valuable data for enhancing the operations of WBSC events starting with the Youth Baseball5 World Cup. This could involve increasing the use of diverse types of renewable energy and minimizing power consumption during venue construction in the game's preparation phase.

WBSC Partners with Alibaba Cloud for Sustainability Drive. From left to right: Beng Choo Low, Secretary General of the WBSC; Riccardo Fraccari, President of the WBSC; William Xiong, Vice President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group and General Manager of Enterprise Service Cloud

“The WBSC, as the international governing body for baseball and softball, is proud to be able to continue to evolve our events and organisation to adapt towards a better and more sustainable future,” said Marco Ienna, WBSC Chief Operating Officer. “We are proud to partner with such an innovative and dynamic company such as Alibaba Cloud to help us achieve our objectives in the area of sustainability to ensure our forever increasing global fanbase will continue to enjoy our beautiful game all around the world.”

“We are thrilled to collaborate with the WBSC, applying our cloud-based, AI-driven sustainability solutions to their sports events,” said Selina Yuan, President of International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group. “As sustainability becomes increasingly critical in the global sports industry, we are committed to offering sports organizations like the WBSC timely data, actionable insights, and optimization recommendations. Together, we can generate significant and positive impacts on the global sports community and foster a more sustainable future for sports.” added Yuan.

In 2021, the WBSC joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a call to action for sports organizations to take responsibility in combating climate change. The Confederation has since been actively working to minimize the climate impact of its operations and events, promote sustainable and responsible consumption, and advocate for more climate actions within the sports community.

Alibaba Cloud’s Energy Expert platform has been utilized to enhance the sustainability of global events like the Hangzhou Asian Games and the Olympic Esports Week in Singapore. The platform has been employed by around 3,000 organizations worldwide to measure and mitigate the carbon footprint of their business activities to meet their sustainability targets.

About the World Baseball Softball Confederation

Headquartered in Pully, Switzerland -- adjacent to Lausanne, the Olympic Capital -- the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) is the world governing body for baseball and softball. The WBSC has 207 National Federation and Associate Members in 137 countries and territories across Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe and Oceania, which represent a united baseball/softball sports movement that encompasses over 65 million athletes and attracts approximately 150 million fans to stadiums worldwide annually.

The WBSC governs all international competitions involving official National Teams. The WBSC oversees the Premier12, the World Baseball Classic and Baseball World Cups (U-12, U-15, U-18, U-23 and Women's), Softball World Cups, (U-12 Mixed, U-15 Women's, U-18 Women's, U-18 Men's, U-23 Men's, Women's and Men's), and official disciplines Baseball5 (Senior and Youth World Cups) and E-Sports as well as Baseball, Softball and Baseball5 events at the Olympic Games.

About Alibaba Cloud

Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud (www.alibabacloud.com) is the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. It offers a complete suite of cloud services to customers worldwide, including elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualisation services, large-scale computing, security, management and application services, big data analytics, a machine learning platform and IoT services. Alibaba Cloud is China’s leading provider of public cloud services by revenue in 2019, including PaaS and IaaS services, according to IDC. Alibaba Group is the world’s third leading and Asia Pacific’s leading IaaS provider by revenue in 2020 in U.S. dollars, according to Gartner’s April 2021 report.