Meet the people behind SaSA

SaSA was started by two volunteers who kept seeing the same thing: good sustainability work happening across sport, carried by people working on their own. Here’s who we are.

SaSA was started by two volunteers who kept seeing the same thing: good sustainability work happening across sport, carried by people working on their own. Here’s who we are.

Tom Gamage, Co-Founder of SaSA

Tom Gamage

Co-Founder

Tom has spent more than 15 years working in sport across the UK, Aotearoa and the Pacific, using it as a tool for social and environmental change. He has seen first hand how much good work happens in sport, and how much of it never travels beyond the club or organisation it started in. Founding SaSA is his way of changing that.

Again and again, Tom has met the same kind of person. Someone handed the sustainability brief alongside three other jobs, solving a problem that someone at another club or code had already solved. Good work was happening, but it wasn’t being shared. SaSA is his answer to that: a place for those people to connect, swap what works, and stop doing this work alone.

Tom believes sport holds a social licence few other sectors can match. It reaches almost every community in Aotearoa, it brings people together across backgrounds, and when sport takes a stand, people listen. He has seen what that can do first hand: sport shaped who he is, gave him his closest friendships and opened the door to his career. He wants sport to do the same for others, and to keep doing it for the generations still to come. That means looking after the places, people and communities that make sport possible.

Sport has been a part of Tom’s life for as long as he can remember. Coming from a proud Welsh family, he grew up with rugby union as his first love. Along the way he picked up triathlon and running, finishing a 70.3, and he’s rarely far from his next race. If there’s sport on, any sport, he’ll happily watch it.

Tom is always happy to talk, so please reach out on LinkedIn or at tom@sasa.org.nz.

Karl Check, Co-Founder of SaSA

Karl Check

Co-Founder

Karl is a sustainability professional with more than 20 years’ experience. He wants to share the knowledge, skills and relationships he has built over that time, and founding SaSA is a key part of that.

Over those two decades, Karl has watched organisations mature in how they approach their relationship with the environment, society and ethics, and watched that relationship become more complex. His work has included supporting some of New Zealand’s larger sporting organisations as a consultant.

Karl sees the sport sector in Aotearoa as having an unfair advantage: its ability to influence the people within it and the broader public. Sport is a big part of everyday life, and sporting heroes are people many of us look up to. As a dad of three kids who are all busy in sport, Karl wants them to experience great role models and grow up seeing sport as a positive force in the world.

Sport has always been part of Karl’s life. He played a lot of football when he was younger, coached his sons’ teams, and now spends plenty of time on the sidelines. He still plays tennis, mountain bikes, tramps and occasionally surfs, provided the east coast waves aren’t too intimidating. He is also a passionate Auckland FC and Manchester United supporter, follows the All Blacks and, occasionally, the Warriors, and loves the big events on the world sporting stage.

Karl is always keen for a conversation, so please reach out on LinkedIn.

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Kaitiakitanga in action, through sport.

SaSA is forming as a community for people across sport who want to share, learn and act together. If you are working in this space or ready to begin, we would love to hear from you.