Who gets to play, and who gets left behind? This is the central theme of our new whitepaper on embedding justice in sports organisations strategies, released at the Green Sports Alliance summit last week.

This question is becoming harder to ignore as the impacts of climate change widen the gap between those who can access sport and those who can’t. No safe streets to cycle. No snow to ski. No green spaces to run, train, or simply breathe clean air.

While sport is often seen as the great equaliser, it’s now facing the same inequities it has the power to help fix.

According to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (2023), more than 3.3 billion people live in areas highly vulnerable to climate change, many of whom contribute the least to the problem.

A 2023 Oxfam report found that the richest 1 percent of the world’s population was responsible for as much carbon pollution in 2019 as the five billion people who made up the poorest two-thirds of humanity.

These outsized emissions are projected to cause an estimated 1.3 million heat-related excess deaths between 2020 and 2030, roughly equivalent to the population of San Diego.

So how can sport, with its cultural relevance and huge reach, help shift the balance and create inclusive outcomes both on and off the field?

Here’s how sport can lead the charge.

What Is Environmental Justice?

At its core, environmental justice is about fairness and inclusion. It means ensuring all people, regardless of background or identity, are treated equally when it comes to decisions that impact the environment and their health.

It acknowledges that access to clean air, green spaces, and safe environments isn’t distributed equally. Some communities, often poorer, often marginalized, are disproportionately exposed to pollution, waste, and climate-related risks.

Traditionally, environmental justice is built around three principles: distributive justice, procedural justice, and recognition. But in practice, it really comes down to two things:

• Inclusive decision-making: making sure everyone has a voice, is treated with respect, and has the information they need to be part of the process and make informed decisions.

• Equitable outcomes: creating fair results by addressing barriers and past injustices, and making sure all communities have the chance to thrive.

For me, environmental justice is more than a concept; it’s something I’ve been passionate about throughout my career.

I’ve had moments where it felt almost impossible to get organisations to prioritise it. But at Think Beyond, I’ve found a place where these conversations are happening, and where sport can play a real role in making a difference.

My passion stems from recognizing the real-world consequences of injustice, whether it’s the marginalisation of vulnerable communities or the missed opportunities for industries, like sport, to make meaningful impact.

Why Should Sport Care?

Sport has an enormous influence. It shapes culture, connects communities, and inspires action like nothing else. But it’s also part of the same systemic inequities it has the power to address.

Here are just a few examples:

Winter Sports Access

Climate change is making skiing and other winter sports less accessible, particularly for groups who are already underrepresented in those sports, and less snow-reliable.

According to a 2021-22 survey by the National Ski Areas Association, just 1.5% of US skiers at resorts were Black.

In the UK, 2022 figures from Sport England showed that white skiers made up nearly 70% of the total, while Black participation rates were too low to even register.

In 2022, a study from the University of Waterloo found that if we carry on business-as-usual, just one of the 21 cities that hosted the Winter Olympic games in the past 100 years will have a climate suitable for winter sports by 2100.

Access to Green Space

Parks and recreational fields are at the heart of many grassroots sports, but according to The Fields in Trust’s Green Space Index, 6.3 million people in Great Britain don’t have a green space within a 10-minute walk.

In England, Black and brown communities are twice as likely to live in neighbourhoods with limited access to nature, especially in cities, according to Friends of the Earth.

Cycling Infrastructure

Research from the University of California in 2021 revealed Black and Latino Americans take 18% of bike trips in the US but suffer 31% of cycling fatalities. Why? Because underserved communities lack safe cycling infrastructure, such as dangerous road crossings.

The need for safer cycling environments is particularly urgent for women: Lime’s 2023 ‘Pedal Gap’ report found that only 19% of women felt safe cycling at night. Improved infrastructure, such as well-lit streets and protected cycle lanes, was identified as a key solution.

Sport, with its vast reach, can’t sit on the side-lines on this topic.

It has the influence, and importantly the responsibility, to lead.

Five Ways Sport can Lead the Charge

1. Address Historical Injustices and Existing Barriers

Environmental justice means more than just fixing the future. It’s about recognizing the systems that have historically excluded people and righting past, and ongoing, wrongs.

That starts with looking inward. Is the sport itself truly open to everyone? What barriers , whether cultural, financial or structural, are preventing full participation? Before sport can be equitable, it needs to remove these obstacles and ensure it welcomes people from all backgrounds.

Sport also has the opportunity to invest in scholarships, grassroots programs, and infrastructure that actively reverse historic exclusion, both for participants and fans.

But the impact shouldn’t stop there. It can go further by building supporting skills both within and beyond sport, from leadership and management roles to community development, to help address deeper inequities and create long-term opportunity.

This increases the diversity of the industry while providing opportunities for the next generation of changemakers.

2. Engage Marginalised Communities

The biggest failures in environmental decision-making happen when the people most affected aren’t involved, or given the tools to make informed decisions.

Rather than imposing top-down solutions, sports organisations should engage their communities directly to co-create solutions. Local communities provide invaluable context on what matters to them most, the issues they’re facing and the best way to progress solutions that will have a meaningful impact. This could mean safer cycling routes, better access to clean air, or creating spaces that reflect the needs and voices of local people.

A great resource as a starting point is the Centre for Sport and Human Rights Tool on Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement, developed with support from my colleague Ingrid Beutler.

3. Connect Environmental and Social Impact

Environmental sustainability strategies can’t just live on paper. And they shouldn’t be kept separate from social impact strategies. By joining the dots on environmental and social initiatives, sport can unlock opportunities to achieve multiple objectives with the same efforts.

For example, e-waste from sports technology could be refurbished and redistributed in local communities, creating employment and training opportunities for local workers while reducing waste.

Similarly, projects that encourage cycling by making bikes available and developing safe infrastructure such as well-lit streets and protected cycle lanes, can also improve access to mobility for underserved communities, while also contributing to better air quality and reduced congestion in cities.

Liverpool FC’s award-winning The Red Way sustainability strategy, with its ‘People, Planet and Communities’ pillars, is a great example of how environmental sustainability can be integrated with social responsibility.

It echoes the original concept of sustainable development set out in the 1987 Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, which defined it as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

It also recognizes that economic development, social progress, and environmental protection are interconnected.

Sport is uniquely positioned to reflect that integration.

4. Look Beyond Carbon Tunnel Vision

We’re seeing a shift of focus from environmental management being solely focused on carbon management. Carbon reduction is fundamental, but it’s only one part of the sustainability equation, and carbon reduction plans should always consider social impacts.

Sustainability in sport needs to take a step back, considering not just the wider impacts of the issues we’re trying to tackle, but the multiple co-benefits of making positive changes to address them.

Poor air quality and limited access to nature can directly undermine participation and well-being, both of which are critical for sport to survive. It also needs to consider who benefits and who is left out when making environmental decisions.

Sport has a unique platform to push for holistic solutions that improve lives in the local communities it serves, creating an authentic and meaningful connection beyond hitting carbon targets.

5. Rethink How Money Flows

The sports industry makes most of its money from sponsorship deals, rather than ticket sales. According to PwC, the sport sponsorship market was worth over $63 billion in 2021, and is forecast to grow to more than $109 billion by 2030. But how much of this investment actually benefits people? And which people benefit from it? Environmental justice is about ensuring environmental benefits reach the people who are often overlooked.

A key part of the solution lies in prioritising investment linked to social and environmental outcomes, while ensuring groups are not unintentionally overlooked or negatively impacted. This approach needs to be embedded across all flows.

Partnerships and sponsorships: Collaborating with organisations and partners that share your values can bring credibility, drive more inclusive outcomes, and help sport deliver on its environmental and social ambitions with integrity. These partnerships should be focused on shared outcomes, not just shared branding.

Climate investment: Sports organisations could explore the possibility of reinvesting funding into the communities they operate in. Carbon offsets could be redirected to fund home insulation in low-income communities, tackling both emissions reduction and energy poverty.

Insetting: The industry could also explore insetting, which involves investing in carbon reduction projects within an organisation’s own supply chains or communities. This can deliver localized benefits while reducing emissions.

Final Thought: Make it More Than a Checkbox

Sport has immense power. It has influence. But environmental justice can’t just be another sustainability buzzword in a strategy document.

It has to be embedded into operations, budgets, leadership, and decision-making. That’s the kind of work we’re doing with our clients at Think Beyond, and the kind of leadership we need from sport. Read our whitepaper on embedding justice here.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. What’s an action your organisation can take to make environmental justice a reality?

Let me know in the comments or feel free to get in touch at tamsin.miles@thinkbeyond.consulting