ST JOHN’S, Antigua — Cricket West Indies (CWI) has announced a new partnership with Apex Group Ltd, a global financial services provider.

The partnership will see Apex as the exclusive shirt sponsor for the West Indies Men’s team during the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup, as part of a broader official sustainability partnership with CWI. It is believed to be the first sustainability partnership of its kind in international cricket.

The Apex logo will appear on the leading arm of the defending T20 World Champions’ shirts for the duration of the West Indies ICC 2021 World Cup campaign. Apex will also provide sustainability and environmental advisory services to CWI over a three-year period as its exclusive sustainability partner. By providing CWI with annual carbon footprint assessments, Apex will help the organisation lead the way in driving sustainability in cricket across the region by putting in place an action plan to reduce and offset climate-altering outputs.

Ricky Skerritt, president of CWI, said: “Sustainability is a powerful concept that is being woven into our organisational fabric on all fronts. We are therefore proud to announce this innovative commercial partnership with Apex Group, welcoming a new international partner to support West Indies cricket. For the many West Indian countries that we represent, climate change is a real and present danger. As the first international cricket organisation to systematically commit to evaluating and reducing our carbon output, Apex will help CWI devise an action plan to become fully sustainable, on and off the pitch. For CWI, this will directly impact cricket because of how facilities and operations will need to change and adapt. We will also need plans to understand and offset the international and regional air travel that our teams have to undertake. In partnership with Apex, we intend to use our combined global platforms to act and drive change for future generations to come of cricketers and fans.”

Peter Hughes, founder and CEO of Apex Group, said: “Amid the climate crisis, sport, like all industries, must recognise and act to reduce its impact on the environment. We are excited to announce our partnership with the West Indies T20 World Cup team and CWI to provide our market-leading carbon footprint consultancy services, to help cricket do its part to combat the growing global climate crisis. The West Indies represents some of the world’s most beautiful natural environments that we are looking to protect, so for us it makes perfect sense to partner with Cricket West Indies to kick-start our campaign to drive sustainability in sport. We wish the team every success as they defend their title as the current holders of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.”

West Indies are two-time and defending ICC T20 World Cup Champions and will be going in search of an unprecedented third title and back-to-back T20 World Cup tournament wins. West Indies’ first match is today against England at Dubai International Stadium, in the first of West Indies’ group games in the Super12 stage of the tournament.

First ball is 6:00 pm (10:00 am Eastern Caribbean/9:00 am Jamaica) and will be shown live on ESPN Caribbean.