ITTF President Sorin visited equipment manufacturers and paid attention to sustainable development
When playing table tennis, is it important to have heavy equipment? It is very important! There is a big difference between pure wood and carbon, granular (especially high glue) playing style and anti-glue technology.
Recently, the Indian women's team has been full of strange rubber, and Mukherjee even won the world No. 1 Sun Yingsha.
Not far away, Misei Ito's backhand raw rubber once made the national table tennis women's team a big headache. Many players in national table tennis, such as Chen Xingtong, do not have many ways to play with the particle chipping style.
In the distant future, Cai Zhenhua's two-sided heterogeneous rubber inverting technology directly made the ITTF make the regulations on black and red rubber.
The International Table Tennis Federation also attaches enough importance to table tennis equipment. In 2024, after visiting Butterfly in Japan and ESN in Germany, later this month, the ITTF president will also visit a table tennis equipment manufacturer in China (blind guess is double happiness?).
Recently, ITTF President Petra Sörling, accompanied by key ITTF members, recently visited ESN's headquarters in Germany. This visit is the second stop after a successful visit to a Japanese table tennis equipment manufacturer (Butterfly).
The visit, hosted by ESN Managing Director Dr. Hans Persson, aimed to deepen a relationship with a leading table tennis rubber manufacturer and explore collaboration opportunities to improve the sustainability of the equipment.
With the participation of Karine Teow, ITTF's Head of Sustainability, Lisa Cathrin Leitner, ESN Materials Development Project Manager, Thomas Theissmann, Head of Sales and Customer Relations, Jens Fellke, Consultant, and Patrick Forkel, Head of Product Strategy, Sorin learned first-hand about the holistic approach manufacturers have to integrate sustainability into their culture and processes.
Examples include innovative initiatives such as the use of solar panels to provide half of the electricity for construction and production, and the reuse of rubber waste instead of burning. ESN has also demonstrated its commitment to sustainability by measuring its environmental footprint, conducting internal and external sustainability surveys, and investing in sustainable materials testing and development.
Petra Sorin expressed her satisfaction with the visit to ESN, saying, "I commend ESN for its strategic approach to sustainability and am committed to integrating it into its organizational culture. The momentum has gained after the International Table Tennis Manufacturers' Federation (FIT) recently decided to establish a sustainable development working group. All stakeholders need to work together to continue paving the way for more sustainable table tennis equipment. ”
Karine Teow also shared her thoughts, encouraging ESN's progress in embedding sustainability into its DNA: "It's critical to share the best practices that emerge from these visits. I will explore ways to support this effort in the future. Harnessing this newfound dynamic can help synergistically advance the sustainable development agenda. ”
Later this month, the ITTF president will visit manufacturers in China to continue working with industry leaders to drive the development of more sustainable table tennis equipment and ensure a brighter, greener future for the sport.
Ping Pong Hu Qingyuan