What is stopping sports organisations from prioritising sustainability?

The list of sports impacted by climate change is growing.

The well-documented event cancellations and vanishing slopes in winter sports may have garnered the most attention among participants as well as industry stakeholders, but various sports are facing up to the prospect of an increasingly disrupted future due to environmental issues.

To underline the severity of the outlook, as Global Sustainable Sport reported last week, a World Rugby report predicted that more than one in 10 of the sport’s key stadiums around the world would end up underwater if the planet’s temperature increases by 2 degrees Celsius. An additional 30% of venues would experience increased wind and cyclone activity.

Athlete welfare

Of course, aside from the impact on facilities, there is also a critical athlete welfare factor to consider. For instance, six of the 10 rugby-playing nations covered in the study – England, South Africa, Australia, France, Fiji, New Zealand, Argentina, Japan, India and the US – would experience a surge in the number of extreme heat days, exceeding 35 degrees Celsius.

Meanwhile the risk of submersion is not exclusive to rugby – English football clubs are also at risk according to a 2020 report, Playing against the clock: Global sport, the climate emergency and the case for rapid change.

However, while sports organisations, bodies, federations and clubs appear to be committing to sustainable practices, their tangible actions may not reflect their public declarations.

Commercial partnerships are a particularly thorny issue. Eyebrows were raised, for instance by Borussia Dortmund’s recent deal with weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall – not least by the German football club’s fans, who protested against the agreement at the 2024 UEFA Champions League final. Additionally, golf body The R&A recently signed a multi-year partnership with private aviation company NetJets.

Sports organisations have a balance to strike in treading carefully between securing their financial futures and demonstrating a commitment to broader sustainable issues.

But are some using ‘financial sustainability’ as an excuse to avoid other sustainability-related elements altogether?

Scott Over, Co-Founder of consultancy Sporting Giants, tells Global Sustainable Sport: “Sometimes you can’t win. There are always going to be excuses like, ‘we haven’t got time, we haven’t got the resources’, and some of these are the biggest NGBs [national governing bodies] in the world.

“On the education and resources side, we’ve just finished two projects – one of which was with the Mauritius Olympic Committee. That’s showcasing what a small island nation can do with sustainability. And the other was with the Botswana Olympic Committee.

“If you were to ask them about resources, and we would tell them about what resources sports in the UK had, it would be wildly different. So, it’s about educating them on what is required, understanding which specialists can assist you, and then the other part of it is just getting on with it. Sometimes, it’s not necessarily about having a huge budget, it’s more about getting started.”

Getting started

Sporting Giants was established in 2023 by Over and Dan Reading, who both have extensive experience across sustainability and sports.

In fact, Reading is believed to be the first sustainability manager for a UK sports organisation when he joined the Royal Yachting Association in 2007. During his time there, he was seconded to work on sustainability issues for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, before heading over to World Sailing to become Head of Sustainability.

After several years at World Sailing and a role in consultancy, Reading finally joined Over to embark on the Sporting Giants journey.

Meanwhile, Over worked across a number of sports bodies, including the International Tennis Federation (ITF), where he supported major events such as the Davis Cup, Fed Cup, which is now known as the Billie Jean King Cup. He then joined consultancy WSM, before moving on to the Extreme Sailing Series, which ran between 2007 and 2018. Eventually, Over landed at World Sailing in a commercial director role, which included taking on responsibility for the World Sailing Trust.

“There were two hats here. I ran all of the partnerships of World Sailing, including Rolex, SAP – many of which I had worked with before both at the ITF and the Extreme Sailing Series – and we basically started to commercialise purpose through the World Sailing Trust,” explains Over.

“This saw the charity create a large amount of revenue that could then be reinvested into the sport. We worked on projects such as the ‘Women in Sailing Strategic Review’, which is now recognised by UN Women. Then there was the Carbon Circularity Alliance, another project that was led by Dan about basically recycling carbon fibre. It focused on bringing sports together that used a lot of carbon, including sailing obviously, but also tennis. For example, Wilson managed to produce the first carbon circular tennis racquet.”

This idea of being commercially successful while being more sustainable – either environmentally or socially, or both – is where Sporting Giants has made its mark. The aim is to demonstrate how sustainability can improve the success of an organisation, while helping raise funds that can be reinvested into a sport to support further initiatives.

“We are a purpose-led sports consultancy. We aim to add value and help international federations, brands or NGBs to benefit themselves whilst benefiting others,” says Over.

“Organisations come to us with words like sustainability as they see it as an area that they’re lacking in. They also come to us for commercial, and say ‘we don’t know where to start’. We then do a deep dive, we look at what’s currently available on their website and we try to understand where they are from that perspective. We would then have discussions with them to understand what they’ve done in the past, how evolved they are as entities and what they’re doing, so we can see what their needs are.”

Facing up to challenges

Reading says that their joint experience across federations, bodies and other sports entities has helped Sporting Giants to understand the key challenges facing organisations.

“Sometimes we’re doing projects on sustainability, but actually, they need more help in commercial and vice-versa,” Over adds. “Sometimes, we’re working on commercial projects and they need a lot more help on the sustainability side, so I think there’s a large amount of crossover. We make sure that both aspects are running in parallel and benefiting each other, instead of being in isolation.”

However, even when budget to initiate a new approach is sometimes not a blocker for an NGB, there can be a degree of resistance.

But why is this? Is it a fear of failure, fear of being held accountable, or simply a fear of jeopardising finances?

“They don’t want to be spending £30,000, £60,000 or £100,000 per year on sustainability, but then when it’s returning £200,000, £300,000 or £400,000, they all of a sudden want to be chair of that committee,” explains Over.

“We know how to deal with problems and we can also predict when they’re coming. So, whenever we are listening to IFs, NGBs or teams talk about their issues, we’re like, ‘yeah we get that – and this is what you could do’. It shouldn’t stop you from advancing. If you’ve identified a risk or a potential barrier, then we can help you get over that.

“To a certain extent, to get started with sustainability is one of the biggest fears for IFs. It is just about getting started and knowing where to begin and understanding where they can create the most impact.”

There also appears to be contrasting perspectives when it comes to different types of sports prioritising sustainability.

Reading says: “I’d say there are massive differences in the appetite between – and this may be a bit of generalisation – outdoor sport and indoor sport.

“People might feel it a lot more in nature, but then with indoor sports, they’re trying to articulate, ‘why?’ You’re still going to have issues or challenges around climate resilience and your infrastructure. There are lots of exciting challenges, but also loads of innovation opportunities.”

Working together

Ultimately, facing climate change is about working together. If one sports organisation notes that the water is dirty for example or full of plastic rubbish, they will argue that they won’t canoe, row or open-water swim that day. But if an alliance of organisations highlight the consistent impact of dirty water and their ability to practice sport, then change can begin.

Additionally, as major events such as the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games highlight sustainability efforts on such a high, impactful level, it will become harder for organisations, bodies and international federations to swerve their sustainability-related responsibilities.

“I think the excuses will become hard and harder, because there are examples and role models that are appearing and delivering against environmental goals or creating strategies,” says Over, who concludes by highlighting the work of the Mauritius Olympic Committee in kicking off its sustainability journey.

“Mauritius was done because we wanted to show that a small African island nation could do what developed European nations have not be able to achieve,” he adds.

“If they can do it, you have no excuse.”

Sporting Giants is a purpose-led sports consultancy that helps brands and rightsholders to realise value and create positive impact through the design and delivery of strategy, activation and sustainability programmes.

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