Kicking Goals for the Planet: How the Sporting World is Inspiring Climate Action

May 29, 2024 Impact, Business, Environment

Extreme E 1st position, Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky (SWE), Johan Kristoffersson (SWE), Rosberg X Racing. Photo credit: Andrew Ferraro.

From sprinters to weight lifters, the world of sports has given us the fastest and most athletic humans on the planet. But when it comes to climate action, sport has been slow off the mark. Until now.

As the planet gets crispier, players and punters everywhere are waking up to the threat of climate change.

Extreme heat is leading to cricket and tennis matches being cancelled or sending players to hospital, floods are leaving soccer games washed out, and entire countries risk losing their winter sports forever.

The awakening has kick-started an industry-wide transformation that has led clubs everywhere to up their sustainability game and legions of new athlete-activists are stepping into the arena for climate.

The United Nations Sports For Climate Action Framework has hundreds of signatories, including everyone from FIFA to Formula E, and groups like The Green Sports Alliance have emerged to help share world’s best practice.

Thanks to Allegiant Stadium’s solar farm with over 621,000 solar panels, this year’s Super Bowl was powered by entirely renewable energy, and the Paris Olympics Committee has announced plans to be the first climate-positive event in the game’s history.

It’s always great to see footy teams reducing their footprints, but right now, something much more exciting is happening.

When the world of sports and business talk about reducing emissions and negative impact, they usually talk about three 'Scopes': Direct emissions from owned or controlled sources (Scope 1), indirect emissions from purchased energy (Scope 2) and all indirect emissions in the supply chain (Scope 3).

Now there is a new game in town. One that focuses less on footprints and more on brainprints.

Inspired by Solitaire Townsend's concept of Scope X - where 'x' stands for ‘positive influence,’ the sports world is embracing the power of ‘F’.In ‘Scope F’ emissions the 'F' stands for 'Fans.' That’s where the real juice is.

Research suggests that by inspiring and empowering their fans, sporting organisations can create over 100 times more impact than they could achieve on their own.

Remember when Ronaldo famously rejected a Coca-Cola bottle at a press conference in 2019, telling people to drink water instead?

Coke's market value fell by $4 billion. Imagine the impact he could have if he inspired his 400 million Instagram followers to take climate action.

We all saw the power of The Matildas to captivate and inspire a nation, what if they inspired us to raise our emissions ambitions too?

Scope F could be impact gold, and for many athletes and sporting organisations, it already is.

Sport is culture, and our new heroes are leading society's transition to a sustainable future.

Here’s a serve of some inspirational projects that are fanning the flames of change and kicking goals for the planet.

By Daniel Simons

FrontRunners

After witnessing the devastating Australian bushfires of 2019-2020, David Pocock, former Wallabies captain and international rugby star, redirected his focus towards addressing the climate and biodiversity crisis threatening humanity's future.

Pocock - who would later become an Australian Senator in Canberra - teamed up with his wife Emma to launch FrontRunners, an organisation dedicated to empowering Australia’s elite athletes to play a meaningful role in protecting the sports we love from the threat of climate change.

FrontRunners quickly became a driving force for change, reshaping Australia's sporting landscape into a hub for climate action.

They were instrumental in the birth of player-led organisations like Footy for Climate and Cricket for Climate, and in 2021 they launched The Cool Down, which invited Australia’s elite sportspeople to put their names to a petition asking Australia’s leadership to commit to a 50% emissions reduction by 2030 and net-zero before 2050.

FrontRunners provides resources and support to players, clubs and governing bodies and accelerates sports climate leadership, ‘in a decade that really matters.’

Pledgeball

UK-based Pledgeball embraces the power of tribes to mobilise collective action. The research-backed charity engages people around environmental sustainability by working with football clubs and governing bodies.

One of Pledgeball’s most exciting projects is Green Football Weekend, an annual event that aims to reduce the environmental impacts of football by promoting lower-carbon choices and behaviours.

Some of this year's Green Football Weekend highlights included: Premier League, EFL and Women’s Super League players wearing green armbands to promote sustainable action, Liverpool travelling to their match in a bus powered by sustainable fuels, and the many campaigners throwing a spotlight on football’s questionable relationship with money from fossil fuel companies.

Given that there are over 3.5 billion football fans world wide, Pledgeball has the power to create a whole new field of change.

Extreme-E

Extreme E is shaking up the world of motorsports with its groundbreaking mission to drive awareness and action around climate change.

By staging all-electric off-road races in the world's most remote and challenging terrains, Extreme E aims to spearhead a gear shift towards a greener future.

Each race is a powerful statement, demonstrating the potential of electric vehicles to pave the way for a lower carbon world.

But Extreme E goes beyond just showcasing technology; it harnesses the passion of sport to draw attention to the pressing realities of climate change and it aims to inspire action on both individual and global scales.

During its inaugural 2021 season, Extreme E teamed up with Count Us In, to help fans align their passions with concrete steps towards a cleaner planet.

Fans rallied behind their teams by pledging actions such as reducing single-use plastic, switching to plant-based diets, or driving electric.

In 2021 alone, more than 500,000 fans pledged over 15 million steps amounting to a 170 million kg reduction in emissions.

Extreme E wants to do more than inspire fans, they want to prove that highly entertaining sport can still be low impact.

Their SUVs run on zero-emission hydrogen fuel cells, there are no spectators, which means no travel miles, teams are limited to just seven people, and the Royal Mail ship that transports the SUVs to their destination was repurposed to be 75% more efficient than air freight.

Planet League

Planet League is a behaviour-tech entertainment platform that uses the power of sport to drive action on climate change.

According to Co-Founder Tom Gribbin, the organisation's mission centres on encouraging football fans to make positive behavioural changes in the name of their beloved teams.

In the Planet League tournaments, teams compete with each other to see which team’s fans can have the most positive impact on the planet. The tournaments resulted in a huge number of actions by fans.

More interestingly, Planet League’s founders noticed that their fans' green actions have inspired changes in clubs who are not doing enough on climate.

For example, when Cambridge United’s fans won the Planet League in 2021, it led to their board putting sustainability at the top of the club’s agenda.

SEA CEO Jan Fitzgerald. Image supplied by SEA.

Sports Environmental Alliance

Founded in 2015, the SEA is one of the leading voices for climate action in Australia and New Zealand. They aim to ‘protect the places we play’ for generations to come by celebrating environmental leadership and connecting sporting organisations to pathways for climate action.

The SEA shares stories and opportunities for how organisations can engage in the circular economy, hosts events, contributes to research projects like the Climate Council’s ‘Game Set Match’ report, and runs campaigns such as #noplanetnoplay.

Embracing the UNFCCC’s Sport for Climate Action framework, SEA showcases Australia’s thought leadership on the global stage.

They co-chaired the 2018 Sustainable Innovations in Sport forum, and they also host their own SEA summit every year. The 2024 summit took place in April this year at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne.