Markéta Davidová of the Czech Republic was part of the IBU initiative ©Getty Images

The International Biathlon Union (IBU) has achieved its target of 50,000 trees to be planted as part of its Biathlon Climate Challenge.

The initiative powered by Viessmann was implemented by 3,677 fans from 40 countries with biathletes chipping in to give back to the environment.

The activity carried out by the fans and athletes in terms of distance covered and time taken to collect trees was tracked by the ViMove App.

Fans have covered 654.559 kilometres, clocking 10.618 in the process.

Half of the trees are to be planted by TIST and its farmers in Uganda while Viessmann will take acre of the rest in their own reforestation projects in Finland and Canada spread out over 1,700 hectares.

A team led by Pokljuka 2021 World Championships gold medallist Markéta Davidová of the Czech Republic contributed a massive 11,790 trees while Canadian biathlete Jules Burnotte’s team had the most active fans with a contribution of 20 trees on average per team member.  

"Once again, we have been overwhelmed by the level of engagement and participation from the biathlon family in the Biathlon Climate Challenge," IBU President Olle Dahlin said.

"In less than a month, we have seen thousands of fans around the world cover such impressive distances and spending so much time being active in making sure 50,000 trees will be planted.

"On behalf of the IBU, I thank and congratulate all those who took part and our eight fantastic biathletes who led the challenge.

"While the Biathlon Climate Challenge is over, we encourage everyone to continue to stay active, stay connected and stay committed to finding ways to contribute to climate action."

The IBU also collaborated with the organisers of the Summer Biathlon World Championships in Ruhpolding to calculate the final carbon footprint of the event and will offset the residual emissions to ensure the event is climate neutral.

The IBU Biathlon Climate Challenge was launched as part its Sustainability Strategy 2020-2030, which aims to address sustainability concerns in climate, sport, people, venue and event, communication, and awareness.

The International Federation hopes to be climate neutral by 2030 and wants to align with the Paris Climate Accord to help reduce emissions.