Pan Jamaica Group, as the first-ever Sustainability Partner for the Sagicor SIGMA Corporate Run, brought a unique and inspiring element to the 2025 staging of the event live art.

As part of the event, local sculptor and sustainability advocate Scheed Cole was tasked with creating a 10-foot sculpture of a runner using plastic bottles to demonstrate the transformative power of recycling and bring awareness to the event’s sustainability goals in a creative way. The resulting piece, aptly titled ‘The Eco-Champion,’ was completed live in Emancipation Park on race day, giving runners and spectators a firsthand glimpse into the artistic process.

Executive Director of the C. B. Facey Foundation representing Pan Jamaica Group, Gayon Douglas, was on hand at Emancipation Park to witness Cole at work, “It’s incredibly rewarding to see something destined for the landfill transformed into a piece of art that sparks interest and conversation,” she shared. On the symbolism of the sculpture, she commented, “The idea for the sculpture first came out of discussions with the Sagicor Go Green team. We recognised that plastic bottles almost become invisible and are often discarded thoughtlessly at events of this size, so with this larger-than-life statue we hoped to use art to jolt participants into awareness and promote mindful disposal in an eye-catching way.”

For its 27th staging of the Caribbean’s largest road race, The Sagicor Go Green team prioritised sustainability with several ‘Green Goals’ initiatives including paperless registration, encouraging carpooling on race day, amping up recycling efforts and providing hydration stations for refillable
water bottles.

Cole, who worked on the sculpture over a period of five days, acknowledged that working with
recycled plastic bottles presented unique challenges. Using plastic bottles collected from the
corporate recycling efforts of Recycling Partners of Jamaica, Sagicor Group and the C. B. Facey
Foundation, Cole masterfully crafted the head and facial features of the ‘Eco-Champion’ using
threads created from the plastic bottles, even going as far as to add details for eyes, eyebrows and
lips to the sculpture.

Calling on his two decades of experience using sustainable and recycled materials as a trained
visual arts educator, Cole shared more about how he got started in the world of sustainable art.
“Growing up in the inner city, not having much, I learned to see the potential in what others
discarded,” Cole explained. “Waste materials became raw materials for my art projects, and that
experience taught me that everything has value if we look at it differently.”

Jeffrey Hall, Vice Chairman and CEO of the Pan Jamaica Group congratulated Sagicor on their contribution to nation-building and enhancing the city experience. The 2025 Sagicor SIGMA Corporate Run saw a record number of over 30,000 participants raising over $128 million for the benefit of the Kingston Public Hospital, Father Ho Lung and Friends Foundation, and Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre.

Through the combined efforts of the Sagicor Go Green Committee, Recycling Partners of Jamaica, Running Events Jamaica and Pan Jamaica Group, over 100 volunteers were on hand to promote proper waste disposal and maximize recycling efforts.