Every Goal is a Climate Goal
Lessons from Social Innovators Advancing Climate Solutions in Sport
by Vinicius Carvalho Junqueira Ayers
The sport ecosystem is constantly reshaping, grappling with questions on how to leverage the resources, athletes, communication, and reach to contribute to the common good. Central to this conversation is how sport contributes to climate action and, more specifically, how sport can activate others to contribute to a more regenerative world.
Ashoka Sport for Changemaking and the Green Sport Alliance explored this topic through the lens of social innovation, asking “As social entrepreneurs, how might we approach these ever-ongoing changes?” We posed this question to four social entrepreneurs with diverse experience of working at the intersection of sport and sustainability.
Nicole Rycroft (founder and CEO of Canopy), Jürgen Griesbeck (CEO of Common Goal), Alison Tickell (founder and CEO of Julie’s Bicycle) and Elliot Arthur-Worsop (founder of Football for Future) joined us to highlight how social entrepreneurs understand and continuously advance climate action through sport and entertainment.
What are the challenges in the sports industry and how to solve them?
The discussion was an exploration in how to identify, design, and implement sustainability solutions through the lens of social innovation. As the sport industry explores new approaches and how to strengthen existing solutions for sustainability and climate action, it is evident that there is an underlying challenge: the lack of unity amongst when it comes to debating and fighting the climate crisis. How do you drive big and small businesses, athletes, and public figures to focus on a common purpose?
For Alison Tickell of Julie’s Bicycle, an organization that helps organizations across the culture industry address climate issues and inspire transformation, the solution starts with finding common ground and discussing the values we share of love and care for our planet. From here, communities can work around issues such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonization.
Jürgen Griesbeck believes that because soccer serves as a powerful tool to promote unity, it has significant potential from an industry perspective. Soccer provides access to communities and keeps individuals engaged long enough to facilitate meaningful behavior change. For Jürgen, “[…] the main reason why we started to use football as a tool to accelerate transformation in communities was actually to increase the reach, to make it attractive to young people to engage in processes, whatever the field.”
Football was also the tool that enabled Elliot Arthur-Worsop to begin his journey into climate activism. He believes that sport can be used as a vehicle for change and that normalizing work on climate or environmental sustainability alongside football is key to starting work and catalyzing climate action in sport.
For Elliot, unity starts with crafting a relatable perspective and analyzing the impact of climate change on any sport or activity with which people have a connection. “[…] from a football perspective, here in the UK, if we’re speaking to stakeholders in English football, you can say that flooding, through rising sea levels or excessive rainfall, is going to cause 25% of men’s professional football stadiums in England to be flooded by 2050 […] that relatability can get you the attention of any football fan.”
These four social entrepreneurs are a wealth of knowledge and demonstrate how an important topic in the sport industry can be tackled.
By finding common ground, leveraging beloved activities like football, and focusing on relatable impacts, it is possible to bridge the gap between debate and action, creating a powerful force for climate change solutions.
What role do local change leaders and community members play in the sport industry’s sustainability solutions?
Local change leaders and community members are essential in helping work towards sustainable solutions and other climate change issues.
Nicole Rycroft believes that the cultural influence of sport creates a community and, as a result, companies that work directly with sport (like those providing equipment, food for arenas or managing teams) should leverage their platform and position in the community. This way, they can activate local communities and sports fans so they can make more sustainable choices.
To harken back to the previous question, unity is always essential: Nicole believes that working in a community and collaborating brings out the power that people have to speak up. Working together fosters a sense of empowerment, which is crucial for tackling complex issues like sustainability in sports.
Focusing on empowering these groups with the right opportunities can allow them to leverage the unique strengths of arts, culture, and sports, to drive positive change. With the help of local heroes such as athletes and sports idols, this approach can be an even greater force for a more sustainable future in sports.
For this to succeed, it’s essential that everyone is willing to work collaboratively toward goals that exceed their individual capabilities.
Jürgen emphasizes the importance of sport being integral to forming community, saying that “Sports clubs are only a small part of what happens on the pitch and, for the most part, they belong to and are embedded in communities — that’s where you can activate agents of change. if you want to create change, you can’t do it all on your own.”
A call to action to the sports industry
There is not one single action we can take as an industry. It takes radical collaboration to address the complexity of the climate crisis and the sport industry has a unique opportunity to tackle this at every level. This includes policy and regulation, as Alison noted: “It is not only about speaking to the communities that aggregate around our incredible capacity to convene to tell stories and to understand the human experience, but also about getting really hard-nosed about the politics of it and calling for change.”
Collective action is also key to tackling climate issues from the sport world. Nicole voiced the importance of collaboration, saying: “Join Canopy, join another organization, advocate for large-scale conservation, advocate for necessary climate action and policies, contribute to conservation legacies that are larger than any of us can create individually, but by working together and with clarity towards goals with collective action, we can do it.”
Elliot has a suggestion for the sport industry: reshape the climate conversation. “Let’s try to approach the issue with a fresh dynamic, redefining what it means to be someone who cares about the planet. I think this is one of the best ways of increasing participation, making it attractive and making the movement grow as fast as we know it needs in order to achieve the climate goals set by the IPCC.”
Finally, Jürgen asks everyone to be honest with themselves and answer the simple question: “Do you want to be part of the problem or part of the solution? If you decide to be part of the solution, ask yourself a second question: Am I really doing what I can do in the position I’m in?”
This article is part of our “Sport for Changemaking” series — a collection of articles that examine how Ashoka Fellows and social entrepreneurs around the world are utilizing sports to create impact and mobilize change. The series showcases the potential of sports as a tool for social transformation and provide insights into strategies, impact, challenges, and lessons learned. Sign up for our newsletter and stay up to date with Ashoka’s Sport for Changemaking initiative.
