Freedom Leisure has won the Swim Wales Sustainability Initiative Award at a glittering awards ceremony held in Cardiff at the weekend.

The prestigious awards, organised by Swim Wales, the recognised National Governing Body for aquatics in Wales, recognise and celebrate the incredible spirit of aquatics by showcasing individuals, groups and organisations for their passion, dedication and outstanding achievement.

Freedom Leisure is a not-for-profit leisure trust that manages 29 leisure centres across Wales. It manages the centres on behalf of the councils in Powys, Wrexham and Swansea and boasts more than 12,000 swimmers on its Swim Wales Learn to Swim programme with a highly skilled team of swimming instructors teaching both children and adults to learn the ‘life skill’ of swimming.

The award for ‘Sustainability Initiative’ centred around Freedom Leisure’s commitment to protecting the environment with a range of innovative measures to reduce energy consumption. These efforts resulted in a massive saving in energy use equivalent to running a medium-sized leisure centre with a swimming pool for fiur years.  In the process, this reduced carbon emissions by 395 tonnes - the equivalent of driving a car around the circumference of the earth 58 times.

The leisure trust has achieved these savings in all their leisure centres across Wales, including the large tourist attractions such as the LC Waterpark in Swansea and Waterworld in Wrexham which receive high volumes of visitors throughout the year.

Angela Brown, Group Environmental & Sustainability Manager for Freedom Leisure said: “Saving over one million kWh of electricity and just under one million kWh of gas over a 12-month period doesn’t come easilly.

“We have strived to engage with every single colleague, customer and stakeholder to ensure they are on board, both from an environmental perspective but also to ensure the sustainability of our much-loved leisure centres. We have effectively fostered a culture of awareness, transforming operational practices and behaviours to ensure mindful use of energy and resources.”

Ivan Horsfall Turner, Freedom Leisure’s Chief Executive Officer added: “We are delighted to have won the ‘Sustainability Initiative Award’. We have championed impactful energy saving initiatives across our portfolio of centres for a number of years now and we would like to dedicate this award to the tremendous hard work by our colleagues in Wales but also our valued customers in helping us make these impressive savings.”

Mr Turner was joined by other members of his Senior Leadership Team to the ceremony on Saturday, January 20 in Cardiff.