Sustainability Column ─ Stephane Bazire

• 10th Jun 2025

With the summer months around the corner, Silverstone is gearing up for another busy season with Moto GP, Silverstone Festival and of course the Formula 1 British Grand Prix all taking place at the famous racetrack which is also a former RAF base.

Earlier this year, some of the RIAT team sat with Stephane Bazire, Head of ESG at Silverstone to talk about how the iconic venue has become more conscious of its impact on the environment in recent years, as well as draw parallels to the Royal International Air Tattoo as a fellow large outdoor summer event.

Stephane joined Silverstone Circuits in 2021 to lead on their transition to become more sustainable. Before joining Silverstone, Stephane had previous experience in sports marketing before deciding to have a positive impact on society and the planet.

He said: “I decided to mix my passions and get a degree, so I got a degree in Sustainability Development and Corporate Social Responsibility and then said I was going to offer my knowledge to my network of sports and event managements to see how I can push those organisations to think about sustainability and transform their business.”

Stephane explained how Silverstone Circuit has been integrating sustainability throughout their planning and operational delivery, much like us here at RAFCTE. Comparatively, Silverstone are a fixed venue but face similar challenges to RIAT such as traffic management. For the 2025 British Grand Prix, Silverstone is scheduling to shuttle in 120,000 visitors by buses from around 11 points around the venue such as Oxford Parkway, Coventry or Milton Keynes. Similarly, another point of focus for Silverstone is waste management. For their main event, the British Grand Prix which they have hosted for the 1^st time in 1948, they have improved their recycling rate in the last few years and are aiming for around 60% for 2025’s event which is held from Thursday 3rd through to Sunday 6^th July.

During the conversation, Stephane stressed the importance of innovation in event planning, stating: “Education is number one, everything comes through education, and you cannot have behaviour change if you don’t know what you are talking about”.

Similar to the team here at RAFCTE, Silverstone strive to encourage staff to be Green Champions to embed sustainability throughout the organisation, which stands at over 300 permanent staff all year round, to support their sustainability efforts. Stephane went onto say “I always say that my job will be done when I leave Silverstone feeling that the team is well empowered enough to do the job of improving sustainability themselves.”

Since Stephane has been in post, and over the past four years Silverstone have been successful in their shift to become a sustainable business and leisure destination. In 2024, the venue was declared as the third most sustainable Motorsport circuit in the world according to the 2024 Sustainable Circuits Index.