Urgent manifesto for sport leaders

By Etienne Stott, London 2012 Olympic gold medalist

As a co-founder of Champions For Earth, a Cool Down Network member organisation dedicated to empowering sportspeople to speak out on the climate and nature emergency, I often speak to athletes with big ambitions who are also living painfully with an awareness of the climate and nature emergency. There are many more retired athletes I have conversations with who have deep concerns about the state of the planet. So with the Paris Games under way, Champions For Earth thought it was the right time to launch our manifesto for sport. 

There is a lot of attention on the Games, as they aspire to the ‘the greenest Olympics’, and  a great deal of effort has been expended to make it so. That is to be recognised and commended. But even hopeful eyes could admit that there is a long way to go to make the Games truly healthy and sustainable. 

This manifesto is not focused on reducing single use plastics at sport events. It calls for action on high impact problems like carbon emissions from travel and greenwashing sponsors.

The Champions For Earth Manifesto is calling for what we believe would be an appropriate reaction from sport to the climate and nature crisis. It is already backed by 20 current and former elite athletes. The manifesto sets out a vision of truly healthy and sustainable sport, and accepts that athletes and participants have an active role to play. But critically, this manifesto calls on those with power in sport to take responsibility and make systemic changes to make sport genuinely sustainable. 

In society more widely, we often hear (from adults) how we must educate and empower the younger generation to act to protect the planet. But this misses a tragic reality; the climate and nature crisis is here now and it is destroying lives today. Similarly in sport, we hear governing bodies say that they respond to what their athletes want. 

To what degree you agree that governing bodies are attentive to the needs of their athletes and how closely they listen is not actually that relevant. Athletes, in a similar way to young people, do not have their hands on the levers of power. When the adults take the above approach, it feels as if they are trying to shift responsibility away from themselves, when in fact it is they who have the power to make the necessary changes.

So it is time for those in powerful positions in sport to step up and to act like they really do care about their participants and fans. To continue to pour energy into sport without at least one-and-a-half-eyes on the existential threat posed by global heating and nature destruction is simply irresponsible. And it is neither fair nor effective to expect individual athletes to be the catalysts for the action required. 

Sport could showcase what a green transition looks like, reimagining itself to more closely align with its foundational qualities of health, joy and fairness

This manifesto is not focused on reducing the use of single use plastic at sport events. It calls for action on high impact problems like carbon emissions from travel and greenwashing sponsors. It calls on sport to recognise that not only should it get its own house in order, but it should recognise that it has a power to communicate and connect which it is not using. Sport could showcase what a green transition looks like, reimagining itself to more closely align with its foundational qualities of health, joy and fairness. 

Critically, the manifesto calls on sport to support athletes who are speaking on this issue. In Champions For Earth we know how hard elite sport is, but we feel the extra burden placed on those athletes who know what is happening to our planet. The best thing sport could do to support athletes who are carrying this weight would be to simply act with appropriate haste and effort on their concerns.

At this time, sport can choose to stay sat on the subs bench, hiding from history. Or it can choose to accept the challenge and rise, as champions do, to face the truth: there is no sport on a dead planet. Sport could be heroes of the hour and help stage an epic comeback, leading the way into a truly healthy and sustainable future. The Champions For Earth Manifesto will hopefully accelerate the conversation and the real Champions For Earth will dive into the game.