How are equestrian sports addressing sustainability?

As with other outdoor sports, equestrian sports have an intimate and historic connection to nature, from the acres of green land that house its horses to the water used to keep racecourses healthy.

Importantly, this interconnected relationship means that equestrian sports like showjumping, dressage and horse racing are likely to be feeling the effects of climate change – and, others argue, also have a heightened responsibility to protect the environment.

In the past year, leaders in equine sport have made some major steps towards addressing sustainability. But what exactly are the biggest issues facing equine sport, and how is the sector stepping up to solve them?

Sustainability strategies in equine sport

Over the last twelve months, federations, governing bodies, and leading voices in equine sport have begun to publish sustainability strategies for the coming years.

In early 2023, British Equestrian and Horse Sport Ireland, together with sustainability specialists White Griffin, launched a research project looking at the impact of equestrianism on the environment, as well as some of the key challenges and opportunities.

The group published the results of their research in December, to coincide with COP28 in Dubai.

Key results saw that 67% of the individuals and organisations surveyed said environmental sustainability was ‘very important’ to them, while 94% requested additional training or access to information to improve their environmental work.

British Equestrian subsequently published a sustainability report outlining ten recommendations for federations, as well as its ‘environmental vision’. At the same time, British Dressage and British Showjumping also published a joint sustainability strategy.

This work joins earlier efforts by the Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI), which published an update to its Sustainability Event Handbook in March last year.

The FEI is a signatory to the UNFCCC’s Sports for Climate Action Framework, along with York Racecourse, which was the first racecourse in the world to sign up to the framework after its launch in 2018.

Meanwhile, last month saw the launch of a dedicated equine carbon calculator, which was developed through a collaboration between Hartpury, Sparsholt, and Derby College, along with sustainability consultants White Griffin.

Leading equine organisations are beginning to unpack the sector’s environmental impacts and develop tools to help address them. But how exactly does equine sport impact the environment?

The environmental impacts of equine sport 

The climate crisis continues to have a huge impact on equine sports.

“Essentially, [climate change] is a major risk,” Ruth Dancer, Director of sustainability consultancy White Griffin, tells Global Sustainable Sport. “It’s almost akin to water sports, because the sector entirely depends on the health of the land, and on having water available.”

In recent years, more and more equine sports events, including a number of showjumping and dressage events, have been cancelled as a result of extreme weather such as heavy rainfall and high temperatures.

But equine sports also have their own climate impacts.

As with other sports, the usual issues – energy use, spectator and athlete travel, and waste – are common problems. In its recent report, British Equestrian noted that energy for infrastructure, petrol and diesel for transporting people and horses, solid and food waste and plastic use are some of the key impacts.

But, due to the heavily reliance on the outdoor environment for keeping horses as well as holding events, equine sports have their own specific effects.

“I think what’s unique to us is land use and water use,” explains Dancer. “For showjumping and dressage, surfaces need to be maintained, and that requires extremely high volumes of water, and in horseracing, the watering of the track is immense.”

Meanwhile, land use for equine sport creates a set of complex problems, including issues for biodiversity.

“We use land to keep horses on, in paddocks, and oftentimes those paddocks are monocultures – and nature doesn’t like monocultures,” Dancer says.

Horses can also ‘poach’ land, exposing soils and reducing vegetation. Meanwhile, drugs and medications standardly given to horses – such as deworming treatments – can find their way into the soil.

“The problem is, when we have our horses out in the environment, manure can contain worming drugs, and insects feed off that – so essentially what we’re doing is systematically killing off the bottom of the food chain,” says Dancer.

Equine sport also uses land to store feed and supplies for horses.

“As a sport we’re very land intensive,” Dancer says. “So the way we then use the land – we have to do it responsibly.”

Addressing these impacts

While these impacts are significant, the equine sport industry has the opportunity to make changes that will have far-reaching benefits for the environment – and for the horses.

“It wouldn’t be that big a shift to tweak our behaviour,” Dancer says. “So, for example, there are different things you can do in terms of worming your horse, and if you put varieties of shrubs, trees, and grasses into your paddocks, it really benefits the ecosystem, and it also benefits horse health.”

The  environmental sustainability reports published by British Equestrian, British Showjumping and British Dressage set out several recommendations for the industry to make these important changes, including member bodies, suppliers, events, clubs, riding schools, liveries, and other businesses.

Key issues to address will include improved land management, safeguarding biodiversity, and reducing fuel, water, and energy use.

Dancer notes that many organisations and businesses in equine sport are already doing important work to reduce environmental impacts. Organisations like BEVA, Vet Sustain, and World Horse Welfare are looking at issues including deworming resistance and how to use track systems to reduce horses’ impact on the land.

The problem is that such approaches and solutions are not yet widespread.

“We’re at the beginning of that journey,” Dancer says.

That’s why it’s so important that, in the last year, leaders in the industry have begun to come together to set a clear strategy.

The publication of sustainability strategies from governing bodies has been a critical step.

“There’s now an industry-wide vision, for all of equestrian sports,” says Dancer.

Critically, the next step is the creation of tools and resources to support anybody in equine sport – from students to athletes to landowners – to measure and reduce their environmental impact.

In March, a group of equine organisations – including White Griffin, the Farm Carbon Toolkit, and Hartpury, Sparsholt, and Derby College – launched the first-ever equine carbon calculator.

The calculator is free to use and aimed at anybody working with or keeping horses.

The tool will help individuals to calculate and understand their own environmental impact, but it will also serve as an important data-gathering tool for the wider industry. This means that the tool will help equine sport set clear targets.

“It works in two directions – for individuals to know what they can do, but also for the industry,” Dancer explains.

Data gathered through the tool will be able to demonstrate more precisely how equine sport is impacting nature – and what support the sector might need to mitigate this.

“We can say to the industry – this is how much land equestrianism has, this is how much woodland is comprised in that, this is how much water the sector uses, this is how much energy, this is how much fuel,” says Dancer.

This could also help the industry ask for the support it needs to reduce its climate impacts.

“We can start to lobby into government to say, we’re generating this volume of greenhouse gas emissions,” Dancer says.

Since its launch, over five hundred people have already signed up to use the tool, and it has been adopted by all the equestrian federations and member bodies in the UK.

Meanwhile, students at all forty equine colleges in the UK will be taught how to use the tool, and how to calculate carbon footprints, as part of their course.

As well as calculating carbon emissions, the calculator can also be used as a useful business tool.

“It’s a really good tool to monitor what you’re spending money on, how you’re making reductions, and that business side of sustainability,” says Dancer. “When you use your data, you can actually figure out how to make reductions and savings, which isn’t just good for the environment, it’s financially beneficial.”

Future challenges – and opportunities

The equine carbon calculator is the latest tool to be released in a recent but rapid transition to sustainability in equine sport.

Despite the complex issues generated by such a land-intensive sport, by coming together as an industry, setting a strategy, and developing tools and resources, it seems that the sector is beginning to accelerate change.

“By the end of this year, the whole equestrian sector will have a vision, it’ll have tools, it’ll have resources, and it’ll have a unified approach from every part of the sport,” Dancer says. “So, going into 2025, everyone knows what they need to do – it’s just a matter of doing it.”

There are still some challenges ahead. Equestrianism can be a world of long-held traditions, where sport interconnects with personal and family lives, and changing behaviour can take time.

“People have been operating this way for a really long time – the world of equestrianism gets handed down from mother to daughter and father to son,” says Dancer. “It’s a lifestyle – this is where someone lives, it’s their home, their work, their hobby.”

But attitudes are changing.

“When people really understand sustainability, and the environmental challenges, there is no argument, and people really want to get behind it,” Dancer says.

And, with such a close, historic connection to nature, equine sport could have the power to influence major positive changes.

“If we get this right, we can have a direct impact on things like biodiversity – we’re the actual landowners, we can actually make a difference,” Dancer says. “It could be amazing if we get it right.”