How Individual and Team Sports Contribute to a Healthy Environment: 3 Key Insights

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KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Sports and the environment have a complex and mutually beneficial interaction in which both have a major impact on one another.
• Neither indoor nor outdoor sports are exempt from the effects of climate change.
• By promoting the adoption of green ideas and motivating host communities to make long-term infrastructure improvements, mega-events can also occasionally act as catalysts for beneficial change.

Photo: Cyclists riding by the river (https://www.pexels.com/photo/bicyclist-passing-the-road-near-the-river-163407/)

No matter what we do to be healthy and strong, we have long questioned what’s going on in the world of sports regarding how consumerism is fueling the demand for specialized sports gear. Sports must have a huge impact on the environment. Numerous sports, pastimes, and wellness initiatives have fueled a massive demand for apparel, technology, equipment, food, and other items.

Some decide to go to the gym, which requires certain footwear, clothes, water bottles, metabolizing powders, snacks, drinks, and balls to grow muscle. Bicycles, proper shoes, clothes, high-energy foods, water bottles, and other items are necessary for those who choose to ride their bikes. Some people choose team sports, which require specific gear, shoes, balls, and apparel. Kite surfing and other ocean sports require wetsuits, boards, kites, big bags, and other equipment. Runners require water bottles, food, running apparel, and sneakers. Yogis require incense, candles, oils, mats, and particular attire.

What effect does all of this equipment have on the environment, then?

Take into consideration that most sporting equipment is made of metal and plastic and is thrown away when it has served its purpose, whether it’s broken or aged. All local life is harmed by this rubbish, which ends up in landfills where it pollutes the environment and seeps into the ground. It’s encouraging that manufacturers are increasingly incorporating bioplastics into their goods and using more sustainable materials from the beginning.

Additionally, a lot of businesses and sports leaders are going green and advocating eco-friendly substitutes for new equipment, devices, and environmentally harmful products. The “6 Rs”—reduce, reuse, recycle, rethink, refuse, and repair—can be adopted by everyone who produces and buys sporting goods. But, we’ll get back to the gear later in the article, as it’s only one component involved in the relationship between sports and the environment.

The Environment and Sports (Or Vice Versa)

Sports and the environment have a complex and mutually beneficial interaction in which both have a major impact on one another. Natural environments that have been protected are essential for a variety of sports. In practically every activity, it’s crucial to learn about and develop an awareness of one’s natural surroundings, including weather, water, soil, and snow conditions.

Even though the history of the majority of contemporary sports is marked by a shift away from nature toward the artificial—in terms of setting, gear, philosophy, and consideration for the athlete’s health—these athletes still heavily rely on their surroundings, and the environment heavily influences how our sports are set up.

Key Insight # 1: Environmental Effects on Sports

Sport depends on a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment for safe and pleasurable play, including clean air, a suitable temperature, clean water, and healthy areas. Sport managers and athletes have been assuming that the natural environment will remain unaltered for many generations. As a result, they’ve developed intricate dependencies in their supply chains, schedules, and systems. Sports’ dependence on natural settings highlights how important it is to keep the planet healthy because the state of these landscapes directly affects athletes’ performance and experience, as well as the smooth operation of sporting events.

Neither indoor nor outdoor sports are exempt from the effects of climate change. The natural ecosystems that sustain sports are suffering greatly as a result of warming oceans, rockfalls, melting ice, and rising temperatures. While heatwaves have an impact on outdoor activities and can affect players’ safety and performance, coastal erosion, storms, flooding, and changes in water current velocity pose threats to water sports. With less snowfall and more harsh weather, winter sports like skiing are especially at risk.

Key Insight # 1: Sports’ Effect on the Environment

Since they provide amusement, build community, and encourage physical fitness, sports have long been an essential component of human society. However, it’s impossible to overlook how sports affect the environment.

Effects of Sports Facilities and Events on the Environment

Stadiums and other sporting facilities play a significant role in contemporary sports culture. Nonetheless, the ecosystem may be significantly impacted by their development. In addition to consuming a lot of energy and water and producing a lot of trash, the clearing of land for their construction may result in the loss of ecosystems and species. The construction of new hotels and highways is also necessary for major international sporting events like the Olympics or the FIFA World Cup, which increases the environmental damage the events create.

Additionally, those international sporting events frequently call for the construction of large, specialized sports facilities, but many of these buildings are left unfinished or underutilized after the event is over, as was the case with the Maracanã Stadium during the 2016 Rio Olympics or the Olympic Aquatic Centre in Marousi during the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, which worsens the environmental impact. To reduce the environmental effects of these mega-events, there’s a rising call for more sustainable planning and infrastructure reuse.

However, by promoting the adoption of green ideas and motivating host communities to make long-term infrastructure improvements, mega-events can also occasionally act as catalysts for beneficial change. These improvements, which include the creation of urban green areas and public transportation networks, can have long-term positive effects on the environment that last after the event.

• The city’s metro system was significantly expanded during the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.
• Another frequent benefit of mega-events is the decrease in air pollution. The 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio all saw this.
• According to several studies, people tend to embrace greener lifestyles and more eco-friendly behaviors after major events. The increased accessibility of green infrastructure, such as the installation of recycling bins, bike-friendly greenways, and the promotion of environmentally certified goods and services, is responsible for these improvements.

Climate Change and Sports

Because of trash production, energy use, and transportation, sporting activities themselves increase carbon emissions. Since sports both influence and are impacted by this crisis, there’s a growing recognition of the link between sport and climate change. It’s widely acknowledged that unsustainable activities in sport have further contributed to climate change, despite the fact that the impact of sporting organizations on the environment is complicated and difficult to quantify.

The emissions from the global sports industry are equivalent to those from a medium-sized nation. The building and usage of different sports venues, the supply chains for sporting goods, and the carbon footprint from transportation to and from events all have a significant impact on the global climate. For instance, it has been projected that 2.16 million tons of carbon dioxide were released during the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, compared to 3.6 to 4.5 million tons during the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Nature and Sports

There’s a nature crisis on our globe as well: pollution, invasive species, habitat destruction, and climate change are all having an unprecedented effect on the natural world. To stop and reverse the loss of biodiversity and the harm to the natural world, which we all rely on to maintain our health and well-being and to provide clean air, fresh water, and food, everyone in society—including the sports community—must act now.

In order to empower sports to advocate for nature and aid in its preservation and restoration, the Sports for Nature Framework organization seeks to implement revolutionary nature-positive action in sports by 2030 and beyond. The Framework was created by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and sports organizations.

Through its four guiding principles, it offers a strategy for helping sports at all levels speed up their environmental action:

• Preserve the environment and prevent harm to species and their natural habitats.
• Wherever feasible, restore and regenerate nature.
• Recognize and minimize environmental risks in your supplier networks.
• Encourage and educate people about environmental issues, both inside and outside of sports.

Plastics and Sports

Plastics are used widely in the sports business. They are utilized extensively in the sports business in everything from stadiums and fields to apparel, gear, and sports equipment. From being incredibly light in comparison to other materials, such as leathers used in tennis rackets or balls, to giving balls more predictable trajectories or ensuring the safety of both adults and children in water environments through flotation devices, plastics are thought to have added significant performance benefits to the sports world. Sports use a lot of single-use plastics in the form of tickets, merchandising, plastic drinks, and other covert forms.

In addition to making the global situation worse, plastic pollution from the sports sector might harm the sports sector itself. In recent years, efforts have been made both locally and internationally to lessen their influence.

The IOC committed to combating plastic pollution by eliminating single-use plastics from its events and increasing awareness of the issue when it joined the UNEP’s Clean Seas Campaign in 2018. Together, the IOC and UNEP released guidance in 2020 to lessen the sports industry’s plastic footprint. The handbook provides a toolkit to sports event organizers and spectators based on the “6 Rs” and relies on reducing single-use goods, improving recycling efforts, and using the sports sector’s prominence and outreach to raise public awareness of the significance of addressing plastic pollution.

Key Insight # 3: Particular Sports’ Impact

Take into consideration that most sporting equipment is made of metal and plastic and is thrown away when it has served its purpose, whether it’s broken or aged. All local life is harmed by this rubbish, which ends up in landfills where it pollutes the environment and seeps into the ground. It is encouraging that manufacturers are increasingly incorporating bioplastics into their goods and using more sustainable materials from the beginning. Bioplastics aren’t the solution to the plastic problem; it is a separate problem in and of itself. However, they are a beginning.

To put it briefly, sports equipment and trends have a huge negative influence on the environment. However, athletes, activists, and consumers all have the capacity to say NO and select more environmentally friendly and carbon-free ways to stay in shape. To see the effects, let’s examine a few sports.

Tennis

Tennis is a well-liked sport, ranked fourth in numerous researched by popularity and second by the demand for betting on bookmakers’ websites, especially in Europe, which requires large courts, balls, racquets, special shoes, and clothes. Tennis events draw large throngs of spectators, and their journey to the games adds significantly to the carbon footprint.

Because tennis balls are so hard to recycle, they pose a special environmental issue. Since there’s no proven way to recycle them, the 330 million tennis balls that are produced each year worldwide are thrown away, primarily in landfills. One significant environmental worry is that they take over 400 years to decay. That being said, even in floodlights, playing tennis has a comparatively small carbon footprint.

Playing outside is better than playing indoors, and grassy areas are seen to be more environmentally friendly. Compared to sports with standardized equipment, tennis adds to increased output and waste due to its variety of racket sizes and ball colors. Similar to Formula 1, the international tennis circuit necessitates a lot of plane travel for both pros and amateurs in pursuit of ranking points.

So, because the materials used are frequently not biodegradable, there are issues with both the packaging and the balls themselves.

Cycling

Riding a bicycle is definitely a green thing to do, but finding ethically and sustainably made cycling equipment can be difficult. Recent innovations in the cycling market, such as more environmentally friendly cardboard helmets and bike seats made of organic cotton, might not appeal to die-hard cyclists who aspire to win and be the greatest in the world. This is due to the fact that there are between two and four billion cyclists worldwide, and the sector is valued at an astounding £26.1 billion.

It goes without saying that large corporations pushing trendy, new products made of the newest (toxic and non-biodegradable) materials will divert attention from eco-gear. The sustainable green movement is gradually gaining traction as cyclists begin to consider their environmental impact. Some bikers think that riding a bike alone is enough to be environmentally friendly, yet they do drive and fly to events, and some of them have multiple bicycles, shoes, helmets, and clothes.

One example of unsustainable cycling equipment is the traditional helmet, which is typically composed of expanded polystyrene (EPS). Although it has been demonstrated that EPS protects cyclists against impacts and falls, its post-accident shelf life is short, and riders who are impacted by falls must purchase new helmets. Furthermore, EPS is a plastic made from petroleum and cannot be recycled unless bikers use it to keep plants in their gardens.

While some businesses are recycling old bicycle parts into new cycles, others have begun producing ethical bikes with bamboo and leather seats. Although the market for used bikes is expanding, elite riders are not drawn to “old” equipment and want the newest models in order to keep winning.

Kite Surfing

As a water activity, kite surfing requires a significant financial investment in pricey gear and a car to get it to windy coastal beaches. This sport’s sustainability encompasses ethical behavior in maritime environments, as well as the acquisition and recycling of equipment.

Wetsuits and kite surfing boards are typically made of polymers and petroleum derivatives, which implies a lot of energy is used in their manufacture. When kite surfers purchase durable items and maintain them to ensure their long-term use, repairing all equipment if damaged rather than just replacing items, they can be more environmentally conscientious. The buying and selling of secondhand kites, wetsuits, or kiteboards extends their useful lives and helps conserve resources. The disposal of boards or kites contributes to landfill garbage and the resource-intensive manufacturing of new equipment, both of which have an adverse effect on the environment.

So, despite being an environmentally friendly activity that harnesses wind power, kite surfing equipment has a significant environmental impact. Environmental issues arise from the usage of synthetic rubber in wetsuits, foam and fiberglass in boards, and petroleum-based components in kites.

Individual vs. Team Sports: Pros and Cons