How is global cricket addressing the climate crisis?

Across the globe, both professional and grassroots clubs are facing the effects of the climate crisis, from soaring heatwaves to heavy rainfall.

Last year, Global Sustainable Sport reported on how English cricket was attempting to be more sustainable. One year on, how is cricket across the world responding to the growing climate crisis – and what will some of the biggest roadblocks be along the way?

The impact of climate change on cricket

Reports have long shown that cricket is likely to be one of the sports most impacted by the world’s changing climate – and, in fact, the sport is already facing the effects.

Cricket relies on good conditions for play, and heavy rain, flooding, intense heat, and droughts can impact athlete health, lead to the cancellation of events, and dramatically impact the grounds of grassroots clubs.

Warmer countries like India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are especially vulnerable to extreme heat, but cricket clubs across the world are vulnerable to all forms of extreme weather.

Heatwaves can be highly dangerous for athlete health, and a report published in 2019 found that more and more games may need to be postponed or rearranged to avoid heat stress.

Cricketers including Australia captain Pat Cummins have publicly talked about the intense conditions they’ve experienced during Test matches as a result of soaring temperatures and extreme humidity.

Meanwhile, other forms of extreme weather are also causing disruption: heavier summer rain in the UK, for example, has dramatically affected grassroots cricket. In 2016, Storm Desmond caused flooding across England that devastated many clubs, costing the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) millions of pounds in emergency grants.

These impacts have affected many events over the past year. During last year’s men’s World Cup in India, heat and humidity affected 20 of the 47 matches played.

Cricket’s efforts to date

Perhaps partly as a result of these major climate effects, cricket clubs and organisations across the world have made some attempts to reduce their own impacts.

As with all sports, cricket has its own carbon footprint and effect on the environment.

Large tournaments and events generate high levels of travel, often international, as well as a vast amount of waste. Grounds and pitches can use a huge level of energy and impact local biodiversity.

In light of this, many major clubs and venues have announced or developed their own sustainability policies. MCC has announced a ‘Net Zero Carbon Strategy’, while the Kia Oval, Emirates Old Trafford and Edgbaston in the UK have all launched their own policies or pledges.

Last September, Edgbaston made headlines with its Go Green Game, which was the first of its kind in the UK.

In November, the ECB became cricket’s first national governing body to join the UNFCCC’s Sports for Climate Action Framework, which also counts Marylebone Cricket Club and Melbourne Cricket Club among its signatories.

The ECB has also developed its own environmental sustainability plan, with the aim of developing a full carbon reduction plan over the coming months.

Meanwhile, other clubs across the world are addressing issues like biodiversity and circular economy, while others are raising questions about critical issues such as sponsorship in the sport.

Image credit: Cricket for Climate

Growth of new initiatives

Importantly, over the past year, a growing number of venues and organisations have begun to build on this progress by implementing on-the-ground change at both community and elite levels.

Many of these initiatives focus on improving energy use in cricket stadiums and using the athlete voice to raise awareness.

A key example of this focus is Cricket for Climate, which was founded by Australian men’s captain Pat Cummins in late 2021.

After launching an initiative to install solar panels on his local club, Penrith, Cummins realised the opportunity to push the conversation – and solutions – on the climate crisis even further.

Over the next two years, the organisation installed close to 400kW of solar panels at five community cricket clubs and Australia’s National Cricket Centre, removing an estimated 8,000 tonnes of CO2e from the atmosphere and saving over $1m in energy costs over twenty years.

Cricket for Climate is now expanding its strategy and appointed its first full-time CEO in January of this year.

“We’ve developed our thinking a lot since the early days,” Joanne Bowen, CEO of Cricket for Climate, tells Global Sustainable Sport.

Now, the organisation focuses on both on-the-ground projects, such as the installation of solar panels, as well as education and awareness-raising.

“We still have a strong focus on visible projects like this, which we call our impact projects,” Bowen says. “We have also recognised how powerful a public influence and education opportunity this is, as well as an opportunity to influence others connected to cricket.”

This combination of concrete carbon reduction combined with education – often using powerful athlete voices – may be one key way of driving change in the sport even further.

In a similar vein, Southampton’s newly named Utilita Bowl announced in January its plans to become ‘cricket’s greenest venue’.

The stadium has plans to install over 1,000 solar panels on its roof, which will be capable of generating roughly 25% of the electricity used at the ground annually.

The panels will save six figures in energy costs, while also reducing CO2e emissions by up to 80 tonnes a year.

Meanwhile, more cricketers – and cricket fans – are speaking up about the dangers of climate change.

Bowen of Cricket for Climate believes that cricket, like other sports, can help to connect the dots between changing weather, like flooding and heatwaves, and climate change.

“Cricket and sports are an ‘object of care’ for the public. They want to see it stay and we know that climate is impacting that, but the connections aren’t being made at that level,” she says.

“Cricket and sports can use their platform to connect the dots by having athletes share stories of their lived experience of climate on them personally to help communities connect the dots to what they are experiencing locally.”

Image credit: Cricket for Climate

Challenges and outlook

Cricket faces many challenges and issues that it will need to address in coming years.

Major events still demand high levels of carbon-intensive travel: during last year’s World Cup, for example, the England men’s team used internal flights to travel to eight different cities.

Meanwhile, elite sport and grassroots clubs are working with very different resources and face their own specific financial and environmental challenges, while questions of the ethics of sponsorship remain.

While sustainability strategies, pledges and action plans are a positive step forward, it may be that using the power of the athlete voice and enabling on-the-ground concrete action will be the key ingredients that cricket needs to take its sustainability efforts to the next level.

To do this, the sport will need to work together.

“Acting on the climate crisis requires multiple stakeholders working together in line with a common purpose,” says Bowen.

This will also mean putting sustainability at the centre of decision-making and planning, as ECB’s sustainability strategy attempts to do.

“Sustainability needs to sit at the core of cricket strategy and all these decisions as the change in climate is posing a huge threat to cricketing nations and their ability to continue to play,” Bowen says.

But leaders like Bowen believe that, as always, sport has a powerful potential.

“Cricket and sports gets to hearts and minds. It reaches diverse people – age, gender, cultural background, demographics – and communities in ways that scientists, government, and business sectors don’t,” she says.

Making this meaningful change happen will be critical if cricket is to play its part in creating a liveable – and playable – future.