LuisaViaRoma announces a continued collaboration with Extreme E, the first ever sport born for a social purpose. The all-electric radical off-road series races in extreme environments to showcase innovative technologies aimed at finding solutions to the climate crisis. After a successful inaugural season, the first race of the second season, the Desert X-prix took place on February 19-20, 2022 in Neom, Saudi Arabia.
The collaboration aspires to boost the conversation on climate change and commitment to sustainability by:
• Paving the way to a lower carbon future through the promotion of electric vehicles
•Using sport & the luxury fashion world to draw attention to the impacts of climate change
•Accelerate gender equality in motorsport
•Engage global audiences through extreme entertainment
Neom, Saudi Arabia, 2022
The first race took place between February 19-20, 2022 in Neom, Saudi Arabia.
Why Neom?
NEOM is an urban development region in Saudi Arabia set to revolutionize the world with its innovative technologies and futuristic city planning. It will address and meet the challenges facing humanity caused by climate change and environmental degradation caused by anthropogenic activities.
NEOM is an accelerator of human progress. By being built from the ground up it provides a clean slate for humanity to learn from its past mistakes and build a future that will coexist harmoniously with the environment. In fact, everything that NEOM builds will only have a 5% footprint on the region, the remaining 95% will be dedicated to nature conservation.
NEOM is building two principal cognitive cities, THE LINE, a radical approach to urban development, and OXAGON, NEOM’s reimagined industrial center and advanced logistics hub.
The Legacy Project between NEOM and Extreme E
Extreme E partners with NEOM’s extensive conservation program to launch a Legacy Project that will rewild and re-green the once flora and fauna rich area of NEOM.
The rewilding part of the program will re-introduce the spiny tailed lizard, an endangered
species, into its native habitat around NEOM. This event kickstarted the project that will work to protect existing species and re-introduce extinct ones once local to the area.
The re-greening aspect of the initiative planted the first wave of native trees to support biodiversity. NEOM plans to revegetate the region, a goal that also contributes to the Saudi Green initiative to plant 10 billion trees.
Extreme E Achievements in 2021:
The first year of the Championship has yielded extraordinary achievements as highlighted by Extreme E’s recently released sustainability report.
Some of these include the creation of cutting-edge electric vehicles capable of taking on the toughest off-road environments; developing a world-first gender equal sporting competition; being the first sporting series to hire an independent scientific committee to not only guide legacy projects but advise on its activities to avoid negative impacts on the surrounding environments of race locations.
All of these achievements were exposed to a television audience of 18million people per race across 190 countries. Extreme E fans also pledged to make lifestyle changes that reduce carbon emissions and their individual environmental impact.
These and many more steps have contributed to Extreme E achieving carbon neutrality by season one and the lowest carbon footprint in international motorsports.
