It’s not just grassroots being impacted. By 2050 a quarter of football teams at the English professional level can expect their stadiums to be totally or partially flooded annually. We only need to look back to December 2024 and the impact of Storm Darragh, all Welsh domestic football and rugby matches, as well as horse racing at Chepstow were postponed because of the risk of this one storm. That’s one weekend’s worth of income, fan experience and play all brought to a halt. This begs the question – what were the impacts to organisations at a national level? And if this is to be expected more frequently, as many scientists predict, where does this leave sport in the UK?

In 2018 the UK government recently stated that poor air quality is the largest environmental risk to public health[i] and that a one microgram per meter cubed (m³) reduction in fine particulate air pollution could prevent around 80,000 cases of health issues related to poor air quality over an 18 year period. This is likely to impact all involved with sport but in particular fans who travel to watch their teams play, competitors, owners and decision makers.

Due to higher respiratory rates when exercising, professional athletes and grassroots level athletes are likely to be disproportionately impacted by poor air quality, compared to those that don’t participate in sport, with indoor training environments likely to have 2-5 times worse air pollution rates. Studies in the United States has indicated that for college 5,000m runners, increased exposure to particulate matter and ozone reduced the average race time by 12 seconds[ii]. There are also links to poorer cognitive and decision making performance when athletes and officials are exposed to higher level of air pollution which if not reduced could lead to an increase in incorrect decisions being made, that could cost sport teams and individuals in the biggest events.

In the most heavily air polluted environments events could be cancelled or forced to re-schedule due to the potential for harm to athletes and spectators alike.

Cancellations, illness, injury and postponements are likely to only increase in a more environmentally unstable world. This ultimately will impact the financial bottom lines for sporting organisations. Can sport really afford to not be driving sustainability best practice?

Where are we?

Sport is clearly affected by the joint climate and nature crises but also plays a vital role in delivering social value for communities throughout the country.

So what is the current state of sustainability and social value within sport?

In all instances any climate related actions taken at organisational level are voluntary, there is no current legislation or binding policy that is specific to sports organisations in the UK. However some of the larger organisations (greater than 500 employees) within the UK as well as Europe, may be required to disclose their impacts and dependencies on climate change through the Taskforce for Climate Related Financial disclosure (TCFD).

Globally, the United Nations (UN) has the Sports for Climate Action framework, which has a set of principles and actions that those who have signed up have voluntarily set a net zero target of 2050, in line with goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. There are currently 280 signatories in the form of sports organisations and their stakeholders of this framework (including organisations ranging from Premier League Football Clubs to national Olympic committees and world sport governing bodies).

In the terms of sport and sustainability, social value and carbon reduction have been the predominant focus for driving positive sustainability related changes, the area that has been widely forgotten about (likely because of being far more complicated and less relatable) is the impact that sport has on Nature.  Specifically, there has been identified risks to sport if the nature crisis is not considered by the sector, this led to the creation of the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Sports for Nature framework, This currently has 60 organisations as signatories (these include international federations and clubs/teams from multiple sports and from multiple regions from around the world).

Several governing bodies and committees have also provided individual pledges including the International Olympic Committee (IOC) who has pledged to achieve a ‘carbon negative Olympic games’ as early as 2030[i].

World Sailing’s sustainability report 2040 has a commitment to a 50% carbon emissions reduction by 2024 (this was not met), to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 by 50% (from a 2019 baseline) and achieve Net Zero by 2040[ii].

Within the UK, football’s English Premier League (EPL) and English Football League (EFL) have launched sustainability commitments and are using their platforms to encourage clubs within their structure to publish and act on their own environmental and sustainability strategies.

We all saw the impact that social justice movement Black Lives Matter (BLM) had for engaging sport’s biggest stars, fans and organisations in pushing for racial equality and protesting the mistreatment of black and other ethnic minority groups and individuals in modern society. Across continents and sports, athletes took the knee at the start of games, in the UK the EPL replaced the names of players to ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the back of shirts and included a badge on the sleeves for the first 12 games of the 2019/20 season.

Additionally, every club in the EFL has a community charity directly linked to the club so that’s 72 community charities all directly linked to football. There are other examples where other sporting clubs have charitable links. The role of these charities is often to support the local community in and around the location of that specific club in activities from providing sport training and encouraging people to be more active in their daily lives through to the importance of healthy eating and the impact of violence in the community.

What is less clear and where sports organisations should take more leadership is in disclosing exactly what they are doing and have done to reduce their impacts on the environment and the positive social interventions and work that they undertake.

What’s the opportunity?

Sport has the opportunity to engage millions if not billions of people in sustainability issues, through fanbases, supporters and participants. What, where and how sport engages with sustainability has an influence on how millions of people will view sustainability issues. If sporting organisations engage positively and proactively with sustainability issues, this will galvanise people to take positive actions towards reducing their environmental impacts. However, should sporting organisations engage negatively with sustainability issues, people will see environmental causes as negative and therefore not compatible with the future of sport or the general sports agenda. Fans are already starting to demand more of this, consider the fan led sustainability groups starting to emerge in football (Brentford Football Club’s ‘Sustainabees’ and Bayern Munich’s ‘Green Wave’)  and sport should use this to promote best environmental and social value practices in their local communities.

An honest conversation needs to occur about the ownership, funding, sponsorship and supply chains linked to sports organisations, to understand the links that this money has to negative environmental and social outcomes. This could be the role that betting advertisements have on gambling addictions or sponsorship money taken from industries or organisations that are inexorably linked to high polluting and carbon intensive practices such as fossil fuel production.

The biggest negative environmental impact that is linked with sport is travel, national teams, clubs and individual competitors playing at all levels across all sport travel vast distances week in week out, often internationally and even when international travel isn’t required, travel at the top levels flying is the most common mode of transport. It’s obvious that you won’t get rid of the high travel requirements of sport, but organisations and governing bodies should consider opportunities to transition to less carbon intense modes of transports, or the destinations and frequency that they need to travel during off-seasons when competition isn’t taking place.

We can’t predict exactly how and where erosion, flooding, wildfires or other environmental hazards that will be exacerbated as a result of global heating will occur or to what extent, but we can adapt and make clear strategies over the shorter term for adaptation so that sport has a long-term future. The location of new facilities should consider the environmental risks, some insurers may not provide cover in known at risk locations. Modification and adaptation of existing facilities to include natural solutions or more innovative designs that could mean facilities can better withstand environmental hazards, such as converting larger areas of sealed hardstanding to more natural porous surfaces to help ease surface flood risk, or investing in climate and ecological mitigation measures, such as funding coastal habitat restoration programmes to help mitigate the impacts of sea level rise.

Key actions

To encourage positive actions and provide a starting point all sport organisations, clubs, leagues and governing bodies should strive to:

1. Familiarise themselves with key sport specific sustainability information that should include:

• The Event Sustainability Management Systems with Guidance for Use International Standard (ISO 20121:2024): ISO 20121:2024 – Event sustainability management systems — Requirements with guidance for use
• Sport Environment and Climate Coalition (SECC) Resource Hub: Sport Environment and Climate Coalition Resource Hub 2023 | BASIS
• The information documents, tools and templates provided by Life tackle to start understanding the corporate reporting requirements for environmental management at sport events: Life Tackle – Get involved
• The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Sustainability Essentials: IOC-Sustain-Essentials_v7.pdf

2. Educate themselves, fans, participants, sponsors, partners and suppliers on the climate, nature and pollution crises (the triple planetary crisis) and solutions to these that are known.

3. Sign the Sport for Climate Action and Sport for Nature Frameworks, commit to the Race to Net Zero targets and sign up to any specific frameworks or targets of their particular sport.

4. Greengage can support with undertaking carbon, nature and social value baselining assessment of your organisation, starting with direct uses and impacts but with the ambition to also assess supply and value chains and create a strategy to act on reducing negative impacts.

5. Reduce consumption, eliminate single use plastics and minimise contributions to landfill.

6. Monitor air quality and communicate with athletes and fans about the risks associated with air pollution; and

7. Greengage’s nature team can support sports organisations in conserving and restoring ecosystems at risk where sport is played, advocating for nature conservation and partner with nature non-profits and universities to meaningfully contribute to local nature recovery.

References:
[1] Public Health England, (2018); Guidance: Health matters: air pollution. [online] Available at: Health matters: air pollution – GOV.UK
[2] Cusick, M. (2023); Air pollution’s effect on athletic performance. Public Health Post. [online] Available at: Air Pollution’s Effect on Athletic Performance – Public Health Post
[3] playing_against_the_clock_final.pdf
[4] 2023-Sustainability-Review.pdf