World Athletics has recently announced that it, alongside the International Biathlon Union, the International Floorball Federation and Swedish Floorball Federation, will participate in the Green Approaches in Management for Enhancing Sports (GAMES) project.
GAMES is an EU funded research initiative designed to help participating sports reduce their impact on climate change and map a course towards decarbonisation.
The programme will “analyse the climate governance and management models currently used in the three sports and support the development of decarbonisation strategies for each partner”. World Athletics President, Sebastian Coe, welcomed the opportunity stating that "achieving meaningful change in a battle against climate change will require building innovative partnerships and collaboration across all sports, at all levels”.
The sports industry is continually responding to increasing pressure from consumers, legislators, investors and other stakeholders to meet new standards and expectations concerning environmental activity. When Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup, it promised to host “the first carbon neutral World Cup”, however the tournament was soon marred with accusations of “greenwashing”. Greenwashing describes an organisation’s efforts to falsely suggest that its goods or services either benefit or are less harmful to the environment. Problems can arise where the rhetoric around green credentials does not reflect reality. Advertising complaints have been filed across several European countries over FIFA’s alleged promotion of the 2022 World Cup’s carbon neutrality claims.
Environmental impact is a challenging topic for organisers of any sporting events, not least because the demands which must be met to achieve “green” status are so wide-ranging. The Olympic Agenda 2020 set out 40 detailed recommendations as a road map for the IOC and Olympic Movement, two of which focussed on sustainability. The IOC has made clear its intention that sustainability be pervasive in all aspects of the Olympic Games as well as within the Olympic Movement’s daily operations. One of the key actions arising out of the Agenda 2020’s recommendations was the development of the IOC Sustainability Strategy, which covers areas including infrastructure, resource management, mobility and workforce. In line with this strategy, operational requirements related to sustainability have been included in the IOC’s host city contracts.
Historically, cities bidding for the Olympics would almost certainly have accounted for extensive capital build. However, focus has now shifted to use of existing infrastructure, or construction of temporary and demountable venues where new build cannot be justified by long-term legacy need. Paris 2024 has committed to using 95% existing or temporary venues, which they describe as an active choice to minimise environmental impact. Where new venues are being built, these projects “will have a low carbon footprint and, above all, meet the long-term needs of the local area and its population.”
Paris 2024 has further pledged to minimise emissions through measures including use of 100% renewable energy during the Games, sustainable food sourcing, and environmentally friendly means of transport. It is reported that drone manufacturer Velocopter is aiming to roll out its unmanned aerial vehicle, known as the Velocity, in time for the Games and it is hoped that these all-electric “air taxis” could provide zero emission taxi services between Charles de Gaulle airport and the centre of Paris. Where emissions cannot be avoided, Paris 2024 is implementing a carbon offsetting strategy the scope of which includes the impact of international spectator travel and which they say will offset even more emissions than they generate.
The Olympic Agenda 2020+5 reiterated the high priority being placed on environmental sustainability - building on the results of the Agenda 2020 - and will determine the direction of the IOC and the Olympic Movement until 2025. Along with a further recommendation to foster sustainable Olympic Games, the Agenda 2020+5’s pervasive theme is encouraging greater collaboration between all stakeholders in the Games. During the Tokyo 2020 Games, Paris 2024 signed a collaboration agreement with Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games. The agreement was aimed in part to facilitate increased sustainability of the Games, in line with the blueprint set out in the Agenda 2020+5, for example by fostering resource sharing between the events.
Concerns have been raised, however, in the last few years, over lack of transparency in relation to the planning of Milano Cortina 2026. Conservation groups called for the event to be subjected to a Strategic Environmental Assessment to verify whether the sustainability terms of the host city contract were being complied with. These concerns were based around an absence of information being provided and the repeated calls for assessment demonstrate the onus that there now is on sporting events organisers not only to meet with “green” standards but to publicly demonstrate exactly how they have done so.
In Germany, the Bundesliga has announced that from the 2023-24 season, professional clubs must meet certain sustainability standards as part of their licencing criteria. The initial requirements include having a sustainability strategy, an environmental strategy and a code of conduct; longer-term there will be ongoing obligations for clubs to monitor their carbon footprint and manage infrastructure sustainably, although there are no penalties for failure to meet standards at present. In reality, some clubs are likely to be much better positioned to meet these criteria than others and the transferability of the model to other leagues must depend on the resources available to the clubs within it. However, on the face of it this could certainly be an effective way to enforce a move toward greater sustainability in any sport.
Closer to home, in a statement published in March 2022, UK Sport and the four Home Country Sport Councils demonstrated a collective commitment to environmental sustainability with a UK-wide cross-sector approach through the creation of the Sport Environment and Climate Coalition (SECC). SECC will lead and coordinate efforts on climate change with the aim to “harness the sector’s collective resources to help reduce the environmental impact of sport, recreation and physical activity and contribute to the UK’s transition to net zero.” This is in line with the IOC’s stance that collaboration and the sharing of resources will be pertinent in achieving sustainability in sport. What the creation of SECC also makes clear is that environmental considerations will be a made a priority in domestic sport going forward and are therefore something that NGBs and events organisers would be wise address proactively.
In 2015 Twickenham Stadium introduced a scheme under which fans paid a deposit for the use of a plastic cup which was designed to be washed and reused rather than thrown away. The Stadium has had a "zero waste to landfill policy" in place for the last seven years and says that single use plastics have been reduced by 80%. However, despite having made this progress, the organisation has still recognised a need to continue to evolve and improve its practices. The cups brought in in 2015 were made of plastic and were not biodegradable, but their reusability made them an improvement on their disposable plastic predecessor and the deposit scheme encouraged fans to ensure that the cups were returned to the venue if they did not wish to take them home to use again themselves. Twickenham Stadium and the RFU has now gone one step further and in June 2022 introduced "self-destructing" cups. These cups are made to be recycled but if not recycled they claim that they will self-destruct on land within two years, leaving no micro plastics or toxins behind. Twickenham Stadium has now commenced its 2050 net zero corporate strategy planning which it says “will contribute to the required global climate action and ensure a continued sustainable pathway for the RFU”.
The overriding view which is emerging is that sport can only achieve real progress in the arena of environmental sustainability through collaboration between all stakeholders and the sharing of resources. Resource sharing can take place across many key areas from know-how to infrastructure. What is clear is that the issue of environmental sustainability in sport is not going away, and is something that NGBs and organisations responsible for planning events will have to consider carefully going forward with regard to not only the events themselves but also to the organisation’s day-to-day business.
If you would like to discuss any of the issues raised in this article, please contact a member of our Sports Law Team.
