Trail Runner Foundation: where sport and environmental protection come together

Through its endowment fund, Teréga pursues its actions to build a more sustainable world, supporting the Trail Runner Foundation in its eco-responsible and educational work. Its members encourage sporting activity that respects the environment: throw nothing away and take action if the opportunity to pick up a piece of litter presents itself.

Given their shared ambitions of environmental protection and raising awareness around the issue, this partnership between Teréga’s endowment fund and the association is an obvious move. Teréga Accélérateur d’Énergies helps it develop its activities and supports it in the 2024 Relais Utile event, where raising awareness about environmental protection combines with practical action.

The 2024 Relais Utile set off from Hendaye in 2019. It will pass through the whole of France, reaching Paris in 2024. It has one aim: #runuseful! In each section of the relay, participants are in fact expected to pick up as much litter as possible, which is then sorted and recycled. The Relais Utile is open to all: Teréga stakeholders, Trail Runner Foundation members or committed members of the public, for whom protecting the planet is a major motivation.

2023 event

The litter race ran from 11 to 18 June 2023, from Lyon to Dijon.
This event started at the Zero Waste Lyon Festival, attended by the Trail Runner Foundation. As with the previous event, eco-responsibility workshops and mass litter picks were organised in the towns along the route. In Montmerle-sur-Saône (Ain), visitors were able to visit a stand focussed on composting, run by SNIMON, the public service responsible for dealing with waste on behalf of the communities of La Veyle and Val de Saône Centre.

2022 event

Participants took part in relays from Marseille to Lyon over a week from 4 June 2022 to 11 June 2022.

As in the 2021 event, an eco-responsible village was set up on the morning the runners set off at l’Epopée, the educational and social innovation village in Marseille. Awareness-raising displays and materials were available, with children’s games to stir the consciences of young and old alike.  In addition, Trail Runner Foundation went along every day of the trail to meet local associations and authorities in the towns along the route.  Litter picks and awareness-raising activities were organised in coordination with stakeholders in the towns. The aim? To get different local stakeholders involved in protecting the environment.

2021 event 

After a pause caused by the pandemic, the adventure got back on track in November 2021. Over 8 days, from Saturday 27 November to Saturday 4 December, runners formed relays from the Stade du Hameau in Pau to Montpellier.

An eco-responsible village was set up for the morning of the departure from the stadium in Pau:  different activities, such as a litter hunt, were organised by the Trail Runner Foundation, in coordination with other local associations and authorities to make young and old aware of sustainable development and of useful things they could do on a daily basis. 

2019 event

With Paris 2024 in its sights, the first Relais Utile linked Hendaye to Pau from 11 to 21 September 2019. Equipped with baskets, bags, gloves and a firm resolve, the runners set off on the 213 km race. 

Passing on the torch over 2 to 3 stages a day, they crossed a number of communes such as Espelette, Biarritz, Bayonne, Orioule and Tarsacq. As they went, their bags filled with the litter they had picked up along the route, until the last relay reached the Place Clémenceau in Pau, on World Cleanup Day. All very symbolic!