At Koninklijke Sportfondsen Nederland, sustainability is not about ticking boxes. It is woven into their mission: making the whole of the Netherlands vital! For more than 100 years, Sportfondsen has made exercise accessible to everyone in safe and welcoming facilities. And then, sustainability is simply unavoidable, says project leader Luc Schoonen: “Wanting to be sustainable is simply part of our core.”

“Although I feel that ESG reporting is often seen by many primarily as an obligation, we actually seize it as an opportunity.”

Sportfondsen Nederland is active in more than 150 municipalities in the Netherlands. In over 90 of them, we manage and operate swimming pools, sports halls, ice rinks, multifunctional centers, fitness centers, and children’s playgrounds ourselves. Until recently, however, this was still without the specific frameworks provided by the CSRD.

The arrival of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) offers a guideline to better structure those existing efforts. “We were already doing a lot, but now we can give it clear frameworks. The CSRD helps us to organize matters, document them, and firmly embed them in our organization,” Luc explains.

Getting started with CSRD

Although Sportfondsen will only officially fall under the CSRD obligation from 2027, the organization chose to start as early as 2023. “Two years ago, our dedicated accountant advised us to begin on time. So when I started as project leader in December 2023, we got going right away. We want to avoid having to catch up later.”

To embed the sustainability reporting process across the entire organization, a project group was formed with colleagues from different departments. “There are eight of us in the project group, representing every department. This way, we bring expertise from all disciplines to the table. And because they remain active in their own teams, the topic naturally starts to come alive within the organization,” Luc explains.

From initiatives to a clear structure

The first phase was guided by an external expert from Rabobank. In the meantime, Sportfondsen has continued independently with the software from Ecocharting. “The steps are the same, but now digital. Everything is stored centrally, you can see who changed what and when. That provides clarity and safeguards proper record-keeping, also for the accountant.”

This approach is paying off. The CSRD project has already led to noticeable changes, for example in the development of a new procurement policy in which sustainability is firmly embedded. “Previously, this happened implicitly. For instance, we already had a supplier who reports to us monthly about the fuel consumption of the vehicle fleet. But in the search for a new point-of-sale system, sustainability has now really been included as a concrete theme in the request.”

New insights, inside & outside the organisation

Sometimes the process led to surprises. “We noticed that we are already doing many good things, but that some of them are not yet centrally safeguarded,” says Luc. “Then it becomes a matter of organizing these properly, so that we can also report on them in the right way.”

For Luc himself, the journey was also a learning experience. “I don’t have a background in sustainability or accountancy. The CSRD was new territory for me, but it soon turned out that this was the case for almost everyone. Even for accountants, since many of them have not yet formally reviewed such reports.”

His main insight? Stay curious, keep asking questions, and continue to see it as a great challenge.

That open attitude led to valuable conversations. “Last year we spoke with many parties, also outside the sector — organizations we normally wouldn’t be in touch with,” Luc says. “By sparring with them, you learn an incredible amount in all kinds of areas. That’s already one result of CSRD: cross-sector connections and new contacts!”

Structure for acceleration

Municipalities are Sportfondsen’s most important partners. “They set the agenda for sports, real estate, or social policy in support of a vital community, and we contribute to the infrastructure for vitality by operating the facilities,” Luc explains.

Sustainability is playing an increasingly important role in this. “It has already been part of the criteria on which we are evaluated during tenders for quite some time.”

The CSRD helps to present those sustainability achievements clearly and with evidence. “For now, it is still mainly for internal purposes, but of course the goal is to be able to communicate broadly about our sustainability performance,” says Luc. “There is a growing need for transparency regarding sustainability results. The CSRD helps us to demonstrate this in a structured and well-substantiated way.”

According to Luc, that is exactly what drives the organization forward. “It’s a structure that guides us in something we were already doing,” he says. “And it makes reporting easier and, above all, more comparable.”

The decision to work with Ecocharting supports this process. A central database with structured workflows makes both reporting and auditing in line with CSRD requirements considerably simpler.