Speaking at the Sport Positive summit, Chris Boardman praised organisations driving change in environmental sustainability but warned our sector needs to lift its ambition.
Our chairman Chris Boardman has urged the sport and physical activity sector to take advantage of its unique role in society to make the "fundamental shift" required to tackle the climate crisis.
In a keynote speech at the global Sport Positive summit, Chris recognised the sporting organisations across the country that are leading the way in becoming greener – some of which he saw first-hand during his Pedal for Paris campaign over the summer.
"We must leverage the unique platform of sport and physical activity to win hearts and minds." Chris Boardman Chair, Sport England
But he argued that despite our 'immense reach', we’re still not doing enough as a sector and that we must use "the global megaphone only sport has" to make a telling change.
"Climate change has often – and rightly – been called a 'threat multiplier'. Like petrol on a fire, it takes existing crises – health, inequality, nature depletion – and makes them much worse," Chris told the summit in London.
"But if climate change is a 'threat multiplier', sport can be a 'solution multiplier'. And as a sector, we can choose to help society use this unique gift.
"But despite some passionate pioneers, as a sector, we aren’t yet punching our weight. So, my call to action today is for a mindset shift, and a lifting of our ambition.
"We need to give equal weight to public influencing as much as internal operations.
"We must leverage the unique platform of sport and physical activity to win hearts and minds."
Chris used Tuesday’s speech to outline how we’re helping our sector to take meaningful action and supporting our partners through investment, as detailed in our sustainability strategy Every Move.
In the strategy we committed financial support for people to get active in nature, restore flooded sports pitches and help sports clubs become sustainable. And we made it clear that all of our major 'system' partners must have a robust environmental strategy in place by 2027 as a condition of funding.
Chris noted there's some "fantastic work" underway in football, led by the Football Association, but challenged top-level clubs in England to improve their efforts – particularly on air miles.
"In terms of Premier League clubs, we are seeing wildly inconsistent action," he said. "This year, half of them flew to the United States – for friendlies.
"I’m a pragmatist, not a moral absolutist. I don’t believe in outright bans on flying, but we all need to strike a much better balance.
"It is time for all of our top football clubs to step up, and put themselves on the right side of history."
Our chairman also called for significant change in legislation, regulation and policy.
"Sport’s carbon footprint and contribution to waste is massive," the former Olympic cycling champion said. "We need to re-wire the system so there are suitable incentives to do the right thing and more consequences for doing the wrong thing.
"The rules aren’t currently structured to truly encourage people to do the right thing.
"But it’s changing. We’re seeing governments around the world start to act, and the new UK government is following suit."
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