Women's tennis with ENGIE: a look back at the 2022 season

ENGIE and women's tennis – a partnership spanning 30 years!

ENGIE has been actively supporting women's tennis throughout the country for 30 years. The Group is a fervent supporter of the sport and is committed to fostering new talent.

This is evidenced in the sponsorship it provides for 14 women’s tennis tournaments all over France – ten of which bear the "ENGIE OPEN” name. Our Group has been sponsoring these ITF tournaments (in addition to Roland Garros) since 2014, the aim being to unearth the best new talent and help them to get the experience they need to take part in future Grand Slams.

ENGIE OPENS featuring our “I'm learning about energy with ENGIE” programme

“I'm learning about energy” is a course available for free online all about energy and sustainable development.

This year, educational energy workshops were run during women's tennis tournaments sponsored by ENGIE, the aim being to help the young pupils invited to them to learn about environmentally friendly habits.

They ran during the Isère ENGIE OPEN and the Seine-et-Marne ENGIE ENERGY, for example, and featured awareness-raising sessions all about energy and the challenges associated with it in the form of an escape game: the young people taking part were entrusted with saving the planet!

A powerful environmentally-friendly commitment

ENGIE is helping tournaments make the transition to net zero. Working in partnership with the events that we support – such as the Strasbourg Internationals (#IS) (a major event in eastern France that ENGIE has been supporting since 2010), – we play a part in their societal success. The #IS have turned reducing their carbon footprint into a major challenge.

Over the last two editions, the #IS implemented nearly 80 initiatives in major areas such as accommodation and transport, waste recycling and sorting, power, selecting partners, awareness-raising and communication.

Combined, all of these initiatives reduced the tournament's carbon footprint by 30%. 

In 2021, ENGIE introduced photovoltaic panels in the Central Court.

And both the #IS and the ENGIE Foundation have been working on achieving net zero by funding a project that has recently been awarded the Ministry for the Ecological Transition’s Bas Carbone® (low carbon) label.

This local project, designed alongside the Centre National de la Propriété Forestière (a public organisation committed to the sustainable management of private forests), is located in Mollkirch (in the Lower Rhine region). It involves rehabilitating a forest that was destroyed by bark beetles – insects which lay their eggs beneath the bark of trees, killing them in the process. 

The project should result in some 369tCO2e being captured over 30 years – that is more than the residual 254tCO2e resulting from the tournament following significant efforts to reduce its emissions.

ENGIE OPEN tournaments helping associations that the Group supports

The ENGIE Foundation supports charities such as Fête le Mur by developing long-term partnerships with them so that their projects end up succeeding in the long run.

Fête le Mur was set up by Yannick Noah in 1996 so that young people from poor neighbourhoods can flourish by playing tennis. They are coached by professionals and qualified tennis coaches or can follow a course to become referees.

ENGIE invites children from the Fête le Mur charity to all of the tournaments it sponsors (if they are relatively close to one of the charity's centres). Some of them get to work at the tournaments as ball boys or even referees. An example was the most recent Biarritz ENGIE OPEN. Around 20 or so young people from the Pau and Bayonne centres were able to use the facilities to play tennis and watch the matches.

Heading for the 2023 season with the ENGIE OPEN Andrézieux-Bouthéon, which runs from 23 to 29 January!