What Sustainability Means and Why It Matters
The Story So Far
Last year, the United Nations published a report detailing the sports sectors’ relationship with climate change. The report acknowledged that sports had contributed to climate change through unsustainable behaviour, such as the waste and energy used throughout supply chains and the carbon footprint from travel to events.
It also noted that: “In a cyclical manner, the sport sector is impacted by the consequences of rising temperatures.” In future, it’s likely that an increasing number of sports events will have to be cancelled due to extreme weather conditions. A lack of snow and ice may put an end to winter sports, while heatwaves may make it difficult for players to continue participating safely.
“We’re already experiencing the impact of extreme weather conditions in rugby,” commented England Rugby’s Richard Batley during our roundtable discussion. “There’s pitches being flooded, while the drying out in summer heatwaves impacted on the start of the season because our pitches were too hard to play rugby on. It’s going to have some considerable commercial impacts on businesses in future.”
Warwickshire County Cricket Club’s Michelle Leavesley agreed with this: “There’s much greater recognition today that sport should put its people first. It’s about systemic change across the whole supply chain, so not just looking in our own microclimates and our own sports grounds. It’s about that big holistic picture and understanding that people are at the heart of that.”
Warwickshire County Cricket Club’s Michelle Leavesley agreed with this: “There’s much greater recognition today that sport should put its people first. It’s about systemic change across the whole supply chain, so not just looking in our own microclimates and our own sports grounds. It’s about that big holistic picture and understanding that people are at the heart of that.”
Claire Poole highlighted that the diversity of fans across different sports offers an unprecedented reach across different areas of society:
“Every group of sports fans is so different. If you look at fans in football compared to rugby, compared to rowing, compared to tennis, the make-up of fans is so broad.
“It’s challenging to find a one-size-fits-all solution to encourage a change in behaviour among all these different people. But if you can find a way to tailor the message to different fan groups, then you’re promoting change across a real range of people rather than the closed group. There’s a huge opportunity for sports to initiate real widespread change.”
Claire Petricca-Riding agreed with the challenges the sector faces when adapting to meet the needs of climate change.
“If we look at facilities, organisations need to assess further adaptions for meeting the challenges of a hotter, drier (and sometimes wetter!) environment. Is the ground protected against frequent flooding? Does it have a secure supply of water if this use is high? And how does it provide shade? All of these issues need to be considered going forward. “Add on top of that the carbon emissions relating to the supply chain, the embedded carbon of the developments, and how the team and supporters travel to the grounds – it is a complex matrix of need and wants which can often feel overwhelming. So the key is to start with one goal and move from there.”