Japan is currently experiencing its hottest summer since records began with WCH Tokyo 25 road events starting earlier due to the heat. World Athletics has made significant strides in embedding sustainable practices across its sport, but are other organisations doing enough to empower their followers to act and take responsibility.
Dr Susie Tomson | Global Head of Insight & Impact
Back in 2019, World Athletics set about embedding sustainability and social responsibility across its global operations, events and ethos. Growing environmental threats and social inequalities demanded a coordinated, long-term approach. With 214 member federations, they had a unique opportunity – and responsibility – to lead by example.
I was commissioned to develop World Athletics’ 2030 Sustainability Strategy where we identified six core themes, from climate action to global equality, with clear targets to establish carbon-neutral operations by 2030 and 10% annual reductions in emissions.
The organisation’s major events and athletes were seen as the vehicles to activate and deliver these aspirations. The Athletics for a Better World (ABW) Standard – 55 action areas to guide all levels of event sustainability – and a tiered certification system and training tools to help events implement sustainable practices, was launched in December 2021 and after testing and refining was fully implemented in January 2024.
The ABW Standard now drives sustainability improvements across all World Athletics-licensed events. Additionally, ‘Champions for a Better World’ – nine athletes lending their voices to advocate for more sustainable practices across athletics – ensure events, participants, and fans are aware, on-board, and driving change.
Think Beyond continues to support World Athletics who are making good progress against its targets. In July, the inaugural year review of the Athletics for a Better World (ABW) Standard was published examining reports submitted by 102 events from 36 countries, with many positive actions registered across cross each of World Athletics’ six continental areas.
The question is, is this enough and what can a major sport like athletics really do?
Sustainability has always been about the balance of social progress, economic development within environmental thresholds. However, we are now seeing environmental thresholds becoming physical constraints to social progress and economic development.
For sport, this is disruption to events and facilities with associated financial impacts – physical costs, lost revenues, loss of sponsorships and social impacts of athlete welfare, down to reduced participation from disruption to everyday sessions. These physical constraints widen the global equality gap. Not just across sport but across the global community of which we are a part of.
Sport raises awareness of these extreme weather events. The timing of the road events, once again, needed to be shifted earlier to cooler conditions. Similarly impacted by extreme weather last weekend, the SailGP race in Saint-Tropez was cancelled due to high winds.
But does this make us think – what does this mean for me? And what can I and should I be doing?
Professional sport can adapt and reduce the financial burden by insuring itself against these impacts. Sport is not (yet) creating the parallels of these impacts to, for example, extreme heat when kids are walking to school or storm damage to homes because of the high winds and increased insurance premiums which many cannot afford.
Sport’s storytelling needs to evolve to relate these impacts to our global communities and create the link to our consumption and growth driven lifestyles. Our ability to adapt to these global challenges will depend on the resilience of the communities we build. Sport has a key role in communicating solutions, positive actions, and social cohesion that builds these resilient communities and our ability to adapt to these extremes.
The sport and sustainability movement has evolved but, in terms of sustainable operations, what was new and award winning five or 10 years ago, should now be seen merely as a licence to operate. Those who have been working in this space long enough and built confidence in their platform to effect change have created impact-led programmes and are starting to make a positive difference.
We know there is an expectation from sports fans that sport organisations and athletes take responsibility and take positive social and environmental actions. Taking climate action, we can legitimately ask ourselves, what is the impact that a major event can really have beyond making a slightly smaller environmental footprint and influencing a few fans to recycle more?
Too often at Think Beyond, we hear the following:
“Climate is too big a challenge.”
“That is not in our control.”
“It is not really our remit.”
“We need evolution not revolution.”
“People don’t get it, that isn’t what the fans are interested in.”
So, what should sport do?
This is the big question. What is needed from society to address the current global challenges and what is sport’s role in that? Matthew Syed’s book Rebel Ideas introduces us to the idea of cognitive diversity and the importance of bringing different ideas and ways of thinking to solve many of today’s challenges and how this could have averted some of yesterday’s disasters.
Clearly, we will not be able to solve the problems of our time with the same thinking that created them. A clear leadership challenge for any organisation.
Fundamentally, human nature plays a significant role in our ability to address these challenges. Are we programmed to create a better world which embraces global equality as World Athletics sets out to support in their 2030 strategy?
Underpinning Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs philosophy, once people’s basic needs are met, they will take meaningful action and be supportive of one another. Providing the right conditions, a safe environment with security and a sense of belonging, are what allow an individual to move beyond survival and engage in meaningful, supportive, and creative actions.
The World Athletics Championships showcases a global community of almost 200 countries coming together to celebrate success and endeavour on the track and field. The Athletics for a Better World movement is helping create the right conditions for positive social progress and the Champions for a Better World can tell a different story and become active agents of change.
We can use these events to shift individual “self” thinking to global community action. Sport can focus on solutions and empower individuals to act and take responsibility, creating the society they want.
For more information about our work with World Athletics, or our broader range of clients and services, please contact simon.lucey@thinkbeyond.consulting.
