CAN THE GROWTH OF
SPORT EVER BE COMPATIBLE
WITH ENVIRONMENTALSUSTAINABILITYCOMMITMENTS?
SPORT POSITIVE DEBATE REPORTOCTOBER 2023

CONTENTS
3456-78 - 121314

Setting the scene
Debate Topic
Poll Results
Speaker Insights
Audience Insights
SummaryThanks and Disclaimer

2SETTING THE SCENESport Positive Summit 2023 Annual Debate took
place on 4 October 2023.
Co-hosted by:

Claire Poole, CEO & Founder, Sport Positive
David Garrido, Presenter, Sky Sports
With debate speakers:

Fiona Morgan, Chief Purpose Officer, Sail GP
Martin Offiah MBE, Former Pro-Rugby Player
David Goldblatt, Sports Writer, Broadcaster, Author, Journalist
Hundreds of attendees of Sport Positive Summit shared their views,
this report is an overview of the industry’s current views on thistopic.
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DEBATE TOPICCan growth of sport ever becompatible with environmental
sustainability commitments?

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AUDIENCE POLL RESULTS
BEFORE DEBATENo – 56%
Yes – 44%

AUDIENCE POLL RESULTS
AFTER DEBATENo – 73%
Yes – 22%
Don’t know – 5%5

SPEAKER INSIGHTS“The key thing here is that everybody’s plans for growth andsustainability are premised on offsets.
“Until we have sorted out the situation with offsets, and actually
made them meaningful in some way, I don’t see how the sports
industry at it’s current size can be sustainable and meet it’s climate
commitments.
“We could be thinking about mitigation. All over the global South
sporting institutions are athletes are being impacted by the climate
crisis in a way that is much more serious than any of us here. And why
are we not thinking about north-south transfers within sport?
“Then sport has to become a really serious advocate politically fortransforming carbon heavy transport systems; aviation and publictransport. Sport can’t do that by itself, but it could become a muchlouder and more significant voice in that conversation.
“I think there is a case for a pause...we may need to have a bit of apause and a rethink on this. I think it would be a really interesting
message to say, this is so serious, actually we have to do something
really different here.”David Goldblatt
Sports Writer, Broadcaster, Author, Journalist

6SPEAKER INSIGHTS“Sport will have to say we can’t grow any further, weneed to redesign sport. How do you have your events?
Who are your fans? Innovation around how we growsport, how we think about sport differently.
“Keep the hope that we can grow sustainably, but you
have to do radical innovation and you have tocollaborate and think differently.
“How would we do this differently to reduce ouremissions? How would we travel around the world?
What’s our hospitality model? What’s our content? Whoelse can we do a weekend of sport with?
“We can’t underestimate advocacy; sports power toengage fans. It’s the balance between influencing using
your voice versus the footprint of the actual events.”

Fiona Morgan, Chief Purpose Officer, SailGP

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AUDIENCE INSIGHTSAt the start of the debate, a majority of 56% of the audience said they
didn’t believe the growth of sport can be compatible withenvironmental sustainability commitments. By the end of the debate,that majority had risen to 73%, with 5% of people advising they didn’t
know.
The themes that came through from the audience on both sides ofthe debate were:
NO: Choose de-growth or it will be chosen for us
YES: Co-existance between sustainabilty and growth is possible
But complexities were underlined in terms of specific facets of thisdebate on growth such as:
TravelMerchandise
Economics
Offsets
Social value
and ideas arising that may change the outlook including:
Targets/Standards
Carbon budgets
Innovation
Audience breakdown
Sports organisations (leagues, governing bodies, federations, clubs,teams, stadia, associations), athletes, broadcasters, brands, NGOs,
UN bodies, consultants, solution providers

8DE-GROWTH - CHOOSE IT OR IT
WILL BE CHOSEN FOR US
Eventually getting there is no longer an option. Prof Ed
Hawkins at the Summit yesterday showed usconvincingly that we’re really, really late! De-growth isneeded.
Sport will plateau in any case - athletes are injured too
much and there is a legitimate case that there is toomuch sport anyway, irrelevant of sustainably.
Why have so many versions of the same thing in national
elite sport?
There are only so many weekends in a year for sport togrow into.
Human sustainability: some sports are already pushingathletes (and all the people it takes to get them there) tothe limit.
More events, more travel, more procurement cannot
mean lower footprint.
We can't have infinite growth on a finite planet.
Not sure why professional sport needs to grow. It’s fine!
What about time? Planetary boundary overshoot, tipping
points & cascade effects demand immediate action.
Surely most globalised sporting events must pause.
Less is more….quality not quantity….take responsibility,don’t lay blame.

9CO-EXISTANCE IS POSSIBLE
As we move towards a net zero economy, growth andsustainability can work hand in hand. In fact growth canencourage more sustainable behaviours globally
Sustainable growth of sport would be key, can in turnsupport the ‘sustainable movement’Yes, depending on cooperative action by sports acting
collectively to influence change

MERCHANDISE
Clubs must accept selling and using less kits. Can they
accept to lose that revenue?
Most countries from the global South are already flooded
with "left over" clothing from other countries.
Why not gett rid of all the merchandise?

TRAVEL
Travel is mentioned but is largely a mess in the UK in
particular. For all events we have lots of occasions wherepublic travel just doesn’t fit. How do we fix?

10ECONOMICS
Fans don’t want more events, staff don’t want moreevents, athletes don’t want more events. Only rights
holders chasing (their) FINANCIAL growth do.
It can only be compatible if there is less focus on anddemand for economic revenue.

OFFSETS
There's only so much offsetting available finite resources
need to be more judiciously rationed.
Is it justifiable to ‘offset’ environmental impacts withsocial ‘credits’/programmes?

SOCIAL VALUE OF SPORT
What are creative or innovative alternative metrics that
we can adopt to measure the value of sport, that will
facilitate the redesign of formats?
In the extreme, we could all not leave our homes and notturn on the lights etc, but clearly that’s not a life to lead.
Sports is too important to society to cancel.
The Olympics are pretty much the only event where allcountries come together and participate in a collective
and shared positive experience.

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SET STANDARDS/BUDGETS
How can sports organisations put pressure on governing
bodies to bring in the right standards that level up theplaying field for all clubs and provides a clear frameworkof action?
During our recent event we had the target of sourcing
locally which fed into our sustainable procurement and it
really helped.
How about carbon budgets for every sport? And let them
define the number of games and races….

INNOVATION
We need to innovate and stop trying to apply same
solutions to sustainable goals
It isn't currently possible, but we have to trust in newtechnology advances to make it happen! The world isgrowing whether we like it or not
What about growth through VR attendees? Future isgoing to look different…
There is some really interesting hydrogen work going on
in SAF - are sports engaging with the R&D communicating
their needs to those doing the innovation?

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SUMMARY
Given the growth plans of so many sports organisations, including lots that
already have environmental sustainability commitments, we wanted todebate whether these two things can be compatible.
Those taking part in the debate that answered no to this question raised
the need for de-growth due to the finite resources of our planet and theenvironmental impact of sports events. The excessive number of sports
events that take place already and are planned, the impact of more sport
on athletes, fans and the time available in a calendar year for more
sporting competitions was also discussed.
Others shared solutions and ideas such as redesigning formats, setting
targets and standards, carbon budgets, collaboration and innovation toenable sustainable growth in sports while reducing the negative impact on
the environment.
More holistically, questions about the social value of sports andalternative metrics to measure their value were raised and some outliers
suggested that the growth of sport may go hand in hand with encouraging
sustainable behaviours globally.
Sport does not sit in a vacuum. The world’s population is growing and thedebate around capitalism, prosperity and growth could fill a thousandbooks. Sports organisations from grassroots to a professional level are
targeting more participants in their sport, more eyeballs on theircompetitions, more fans and more revenue.
Whilst the majority of our audience believes the growth of sport cannot sit
alongside environmental sustainability, the debate highlighted the crucial
need for sports organisations to consider sustainable and accountable
growth, that balances the desire for expansion with the need to reduce
environmental impact and work within planetary boundaries.
“We have a finite environment—the planet. Anyone who thinks that you
can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman or aneconomist.” Sir David Attenborough13THANKS
To our panellists; Fiona Morgan, David Goldblatt and Martin
Offiah MBE.
To our co-hosts; David Garrido and Claire Poole.
To our audience; for your input, honesty and commitment todriving progress forward for sustainability within sport.
To our team; Lauren, Russell, Louisa, Claire, Nancy, Jenny, Mila,
Phil and volunteers.

DISCLAIMER
The views expressed in this document do not necessarily reflect
the views of Sport Positive Ltd.
All references to individual organisations have been removed foranonymity.
If you have any questions about this report, contact
info@sportpositivesummit.com
If you wish to reference the information contained in this report,
please attribute quotes to Sport Positive Summit 2023.

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