Roundtables for Sustainability

After the final round of the traditional President’s Cup golf competition at EIGCA’s Annual Meeting, some 90 EIGCA members, partners and patrons took part in a sustainable golf roundtable session designed by the GEO Sustainable Golf Foundation held at Royal Copenhagen Golfklubb.

The introduction of this roundtable session provided the opportunity for greater interaction between EIGCA members and partners. The resulting conversations were both engaging and productive and allowed the partners the chance to talk about their products, services and philosophies in real-life scenarios, while also illustrating the value enabled by architects generally.

Predictably, the members also showed what can happen when their creative juices start flowing.

With help from the GEO, the session was structured around three topics:

• Nature
• Resources
• Community

A scenario was created relating to each topic, along with a fictional client brief, and a site map to supply further context. Each scenario was accompanied by three questions, two relating to golf course design issues and one relating to communication and public relations. In other words, the session was designed to let architects speak to as many partners as possible, while also tackling each of the three scenarios.

The openness of the scenarios allowed for some tricky situations and out-of-the-box solutions. Some included the creation of courses with no bunkers, a compact course that runs out and back in along a central irrigation line, the use of autonomous machinery across the course, and creating loops of holes with their own themes and target players.

Feedback from the group has been largely positive and the EIGCA are already looking at how a similar session can be improved upon to benefit the members and partners.

A full report on the session set up, scenarios and findings is available for delegates at the EIGCA Annual Meeting in Copenhagen by contacting Lindsey Collumbell, EIGCA’s Executive Officer.