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Sport may finally be waking up to the importance of sustainability, but implementing meaningful change within the industry remains an ongoing challenge.
At its core, sustainability is about long-term viability. In other words, it is the ability to maintain or support a process over time. Cutting carbon emissions and reducing plastic waste are among the initiatives that often claim the headlines, but sustainability is applicable to any sector, organisation or individual in the world.
“It’s common sense, to a degree,” explains Jim White, principal consultant at Nature Positive, an environmental consultancy which is part of global services group RSK. “We sometimes have this idea of looking at sustainability through a slightly narrow lens.
“We’ve got the environmental side, we’ve got the social side, and then we’ve got the economic side. Those are all part of that discussion of sustainability for every organisation.”
Incidents which demonstrate sport’s neglect of the environment, such as soccer teams taking short-haul flights to away games, have been proven to attract more attention. This can lead to short-term decisions on sustainability that fail to address wider issues of how the industry operates.
It is certainly important that sports teams are held to account on how they travel to matches. Premier League clubs have been singled out as some of the worst culprits when it comes to extensive use of short-haul flights, with England’s top-tier sides estimated to generate an average of 56.7 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per season due to travel. Around 85 per cent of that is generated through flying to and from fixtures.
Even so, the all-encompassing nature of sustainability means sport must see the bigger picture. That means factoring it into every area of the business, from upholding social standards in global supply chains to ensuring a wider pool of athletes are brought into the talent pipeline.
Not every sports organisation is going to have the same priorities and implementing a tailored sustainability strategy could feel overwhelming. But failure to take action would mean missing out on significant opportunities.
Premier League clubs have been criticised for the number of short-haul flights they take to games each season (Image credit: Getty Images)
Sustainability needs to be higher up on the list of priorities
On the pitch, elite sport is about instant results and winning is regarded as the prevailing metric of success. However, according to White, that has led to “short termism” in the area of sustainability.
“It makes [sustainability] hard if you’re trying to think long term,” he adds. “If you’re working in a sport and your current performance means you’re not going to have a job next year, you’re not thinking past that current season.”
This means that decisions about off-pitch matters may lack clear long-term goals. Sustainability, though, needs to be incorporated into the day-to-day running of an organisation with an emphasis on the years ahead.
According to White, one notable example is the cost of energy, which is making operating stadiums increasingly expensive.
“If you take more ownership on your energy generation through renewables, you avoid the reliance on political situations or large oil and gas companies and other factors that are causing the increase in prices,” he notes.
Amateur teams in England have been feeling the pinch. One club told the BBC that the cost-of-living crisis poses the biggest threat to non-league soccer since World War Two. Sides at the top of the food chain have also taken note, with Premier League champions Manchester City planning to install more than 10,000 solar panels at their training ground. The move is set to make the facility one of largest producers of renewable energy in the global game.
Yet energy production and usage are just one part of the sustainability puzzle and further action is needed to ensure future prosperity, even if positive returns may not arrive immediately.
“[Sport is] maybe not seeing the importance of these different topics that feed into sustainability, understanding all those factors that come into building resilience for your business and what the benefit of acting on these are going to be,” says White.
Sustainability initiatives can help sport make a positive social impact, according to White (Image credit: Getty Images)
Why sustainability is an opportunity – not a hindrance
For some, sustainability in sport is about compromise. Whether it’s signing a partnership with an oil company or increasing a stadium’s capacity, business expansion and enhancing the product can have ramifications for the environment. However, an organisation might be less likely to be open-minded about sustainability if it means having to pass up a lucrative commercial venture.
White, though, believes sport “hasn’t connected the dots” between how sustainability initiatives can support its efforts to make a positive social impact.
“Increasing education, equality, diversity and inclusion, and working with local communities,” he continues. “This is bread and butter to most sports and what they’re trying to influence and how they’re trying to get more people to play and engage.”
Essentially, White says organisations have the chance to increase the value of what they’re doing.
“There’s quite big leaning towards double materiality,” he adds. “One part is the financial side. What’s going to hit most in the bottom line. The other side is impact materiality. Where you are having a positive or negative impact on the local community, on the wider economy and the environment.”
Whether they want to or not, sports organisations are going to have to start thinking about sustainability a lot more. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) now sets the standard by which nearly 50,000 European Union (EU) companies have to report their climate and environmental impact, and in some scenarios has implications for UK businesses. Financial penalties will be handed down for failing to adhere to reporting requirements.
Cynics might argue that new regulations are simply a case of yet more bureaucratic red tape. But, according to White, organisations should use directives to refocus for the future and get a better understanding of what their stakeholders want.
“It’s all part of this interconnected web,” he says. “It’s about expanding the view of what sustainability is all about.”
Cricket has been identified as one of the sports that is in particular danger from the impact of climate change (Image credit: Getty Images)
How sustainability can futureproof businesses
As well as regulations and public sentiment, sustainability is having an influence on investment. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) related assets under management are expected to increase to US$33.9 trillion by 2026, compared to US$18.4 trillion in 2021, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
ESG standards have gone from being optional to essential. More investments are being made with consideration of the environment and human wellbeing rather than just the economy, with PwC noting that 83 per cent of consumers believe companies should actively shape ESG best practices.
With investors now factoring in ESG considerations, sports organisations may find that they are unable to access fresh capital if they are deemed to have an inadequate sustainability strategy, or targets and management actions.
Assuming sport can demonstrate it is addressing ESG issues, it will have cleared a major hurdle in futureproofing its business. But money from investors will not solve everything.
Understanding the risk profile of a supply chain is pivotal to the resilience of an organisation. Some risks will be relatively obvious, such as access to key materials. In cricket, a shortage of willow trees in Kashmir, where bats are made before being shipped across India and other countries around the world, has put the region’s bat-making industry in peril. More broadly, there has been talk about using bamboo bats as a sustainable alternative to the traditional willow.
It is one of several signs that things are changing in the sport. A 2019 report from the British Association for Sustainable Sport (BASIS) stated that cricket is the sport in most danger from the impact of a changing climate, with floods and drought posing a significant threat.
“The more time a sport has to prepare for something and plan around it, it’s much more likely to be able to actually handle that when it happens,” says White.
Other environmental and social risks may be more indirect and require effective due diligence to identify. If organisations do not take steps to identify these risks, whether financial, regulatory or reputational, they will be poorly positioned to manage them if or when they occur.
One business supporting the sports industry in addressing ESG is RSK, which works with sports organisations to ensure that they understand and prioritise the most pressing sustainability areas unique to them. Among others, the group has partnered with English third-tier soccer club Charlton Athletic since 2022 to implement a comprehensive strategy that incorporates everything from audits on energy consumption and sustainability targets, to exploring rainwater harvesting opportunities and installing LED lightbulbs.
Going forward, the ambition is to get Charlton on a par with Forest Green Rovers, who are frequently ranked as the greenest soccer club in the world, and help make the Addicks commercially sustainable.
“Sustainability is a big, complex, broad term,” says White. “We make sure that what we’re focusing on what are the most important things for that particular organisation.
“To understand what is most important to that organisation we look at the industry and legislation, we do stakeholder engagement, internal reviews, to identify those priority areas, which we’ll build into a structured strategy that can be implemented.”
RSK plans to help Charlton Athletic become one of soccer’s greenest clubs (Image credit: Getty Images)
How sport can get on the front foot
White believes that sport can’t approach sustainability “in a silo”.
“When we’re talking about sustainability, we’re talking about impact and value outside of the business as well,” he notes. “There’s an ecosystem of local communities, investors and partners, all these different things that come into a modern business.
“It’s about understanding all the areas you’re affecting or being affected by what’s the most important for your stakeholders and business, but also which areas will generally make your business successful or not.”
White adds that sustainability KPIs should be “challenging but achievable” and include a mix of short, medium and long-term objectives. The need for authenticity is also crucial, particularly at a time when businesses are increasingly being accused of ‘greenwashing’. In addition, he argues that an organisation shouldn’t be afraid to admit it won’t have all the answers straight away.
“If you don’t know something, you don’t know something,” White explains. “It’s fine to say you’re still working on your understanding of [sustainability] because [it means] you’re not trying to hide anything.
“Make clear what you’re focusing on, your targets. Being [transparent] takes away the ammunition of those who might want to point fingers and find fault.
“If you’re already on the front foot and saying, ‘this is where we are, this is what we’re prioritising, this is what we’re going to do’, then that’s a really important part of a sustainability strategy.”
If the last few years have taught anything, it’s that sport is resilient. The industry came roaring back after Covid, with attendances in particular demonstrating that fans are still willing to pay watch their favourite athletes in person.
But as the industry starts to explore fresh opportunities for the future, it will count for little if sustainability is not at the heart of those plans.
“If you’re not building resiliency around how you operate in the years ahead, risks are going to very quickly become issues and you’re not going to be prepared for them,” says White.
“It’s about looking forward and understanding what is going to impact the way you do business or the way your sport operates.”
Now is the time for the sports industry to embrace sustainability as a key driver of future success. By partnering with RSK, a global leader in the delivery of sustainable solutions, sports teams can address environmental and social challenges while futureproofing their business models. With over 200 businesses and 15,000 employees working across research and development, consultancy and on-the-ground application, RSK can deliver a complete solution that is unrivalled in the market.
Discover how they can assist your organisation here.