Sport has been proven to be sustainable for our health, both physically and mentally. However, is it sustainable for the planet? In most cases the answer is no. Sport, especially major sporting events, can have massive negative effects on the environment.
Major sporting events create numerous issues for the environment from the building and use of stadiums and arenas, the huge movement of fans into these venues and how they get there, the companies involved and the event itself.
Each of these areas of a sporting event causes their own greenhouse gas emissions that add to the effects of global warming. Building new stadiums and arenas creates numerous issues from emissions, due to waste and the materials that are used. In order to be more sustainable builders and architects who build and design these venues must use low carbon materials and recycled materials must also be considered. The energy needed to build these venues, in order to be sustainable, needs to be renewable.
This applies during the events as well, in order to increase an events sustainability, renewable energy should be opted for to run lights, and temperature control, etc. Other ways to make events sustainable are to stop the selling of food and drink within single-use plastic containers and to accommodate recycling through designated recycling bins. Supplying bins will help to protect our environment as large amounts of rubbish tends to be left behind after an event.
Fans must also be encouraged to be more sustainable. Public transport and electric charging points should be made available to prevent large numbers of cars coming into the venue’s car parks. This will lower the events emissions significantly.
Sporting events must also take into consideration the companies they work with. This includes the companies that build the venues, help to run the event and its sponsors. In order to have a sustainable sporting event these companies need to also be sustainable or making a significant effort to be more sustainable.
Overall, our sporting events are not doing enough to be sustainable and many of them have the means to make sustainable changes. Each area of these events has massive room for improvement and the companies, athletes and fans all need to work together to implement sustainable changes.
