Allies

UN Climate Change invites sports organizations and their stakeholders to join a new climate action for sport movement. This initiative aims at supporting and guiding sports actors in achieving global climate change goals.

Uniting behind a set of principles, sports organizations and their communities have created an initiative by collaborating in order to position their sector on the path of the low carbon economy that global leaders agreed on in Paris: Sports for Climate Action.

The International Olympic Committee is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Sustainability is one of the three pillars of Olympic Agenda 2020 alongside credibility and youth. In line with its recommendations, the IOC has developed a Sustainability Strategy. Based on the responsibility of the IOC as an organization, as the owner of the Olympic Games, and as the leader of the Olympic Movement, it focuses on infrastructure and natural sites, sourcing and resource management, mobility, workforce, and climate.

The Sports Environment Alliance (SEA) is committed to do more {for the world} with less {footprint} so we can continue to have places to play.

SEA is Australia’s leading advocate for sustainability in sport. SEA is a not-for-profit industry organisation leading the charge to educate and empower the sports community, with a mission to drive meaningful environmental change across the sporting ecosystem.  

Learn more: https://www.sportsenvironmentalliance.org/

Helping to build the world’s most inclusive and influential sustainability network for sports federations, leagues, clubs, venues, businesses and fans seeking to address climate change and other pressing environmental, social and ethical issues.

The Green Sports Alliance is the environmentally-focused trade organization that convenes stakeholders from around the sporting world (teams, leagues, conferences, venues, corporate partners, governmental agencies, athletes, and fans) to promote healthy, sustainable communities where we live and play. We are committed to creating awareness and dedicated to creating meaningful change towards a more sustainable future.

We share resources, experience, and expertise to raise awareness of what’s environmentally possible in sports, business, and society. We mobilize sports organizations, communities, athletes, and fans to create sustainable progress and behavior change.

BASIS is the UK’s leading not-for-profit dedicated to sustainability in sport. For over a decade, we’ve helped clubs, venues, and governing bodies understand their environmental impact and take meaningful action. With a growing network of 80+ members and strong links across the entire sport sector, BASIS exists to educate, engage and empower – harnessing the unique power of sport to build a healthier, more sustainable future. 

The Toolbox’s mission is to make creating a sustainability strategy accessible to all. We recognize that as organizations realize the importance of the sustainable transition, it can be daunting to know where to start and how to tackle the complexity of the challenge. The Toolbox is a free suite of guides, tools, and templates housed within an 8 step process to help organizations create a comprehensive sustainability program. Our framework provides organizations with resources and a step-by-step roadmap to integrate sustainability practices into their operations.

Join The Toolbox today; a community for the transition to sustainability!

Second Nature Sisters is a free kick-ass community for women who work (or want to work) in sustainability… and spice whilst doing it.

The Carbon Literacy Project is a celebrated, multi-award winning, globally unique climate change project founded in Manchester. Carbon Literacy offers a flexible framework for a days’ worth of highly relevant climate change learning, and with large-scale take-up across the UK and Europe, over 70,000 learners have now been certified as Carbon Literate.

Carbon Literacy learning and certification covers the essentials of climate change, carbon footprints, how an individual can ‘do their bit’, and why it is relevant from an individual to an organisational level.

Over the past 3 years, The Carbon Literacy Project has been working more closely with a wide range of public and private sectors to create off-the-shelf Carbon Literacy Toolkits for organisations within the sector to pick up and use to train their people. The latest of these Toolkits is the Carbon Literacy Sports Kit, which was made available to sports organisations in April 2023.

EcoAthletes inspires and coaches athletes to lead climate action.

ACTING GREEN brings together key players in sports across Latin America and the Global South to make the industry a force for sustainability. Supported by the Colombian Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee, this initiative aims to reduce the sports sector’s carbon footprint, currently emitting as much as a mid-sized country. ACTING GREEN calls for sports to lead the way towards a greener future.

Pledgeball is a research-backed charity that engages fans on environmental sustainability. Working with stakeholders across the sports community, from clubs to bodies such as the LTA, from the FSA to County FAs, Pledgeball mobilises fans and event-goers to make pro-environmental choices resulting in significant emission reductions.

Spirit of Football (SOF) is an award-winning, nonprofit organization based in Germany, England and Brazil. Since 2005, SOF has been running programs using football as a tool to tackle the most pertinent challenges facing societies and the planet. SOF operates under three principle pillars of “diversity”, “respect”, and “teamwork”.

Every 4 years since 2002, “The Ball” (one football) has travelled overland from Battersea Park in London, where the first official football match took place, to the FIFA World Cup using a common call to action: “One Ball, One World”. The Ball is more than just a journey; Spirit of Football works closely with multiple partners along the way on specific social and environmental topics. From exchange platforms to policy change, The Ball brings together a diverse group of stakeholders from governments, schools, the football industry & civil society.

In 2022 and 2023, for the first time ever, The Ball is traveling to the FIFA Women’s World Cup in New Zealand and Australia, delivering workshops to identify local environmental problems, demonstrate their global relevance and showcase possible solutions to climate change. This time The Ball uses the positive power of the world’s most popular sport to encourage people to commit to climate action.

GEO Foundation for Sustainable Golf is the international non-profit entirely dedicated to helping accelerate sustainability in and through golf. Its goal is to work collaboratively to help the sport embrace environmental and social issues and become widely acclaimed for its proactive leadership in fostering nature, conserving resources, building stronger communities and taking climate action.

At Athletes of the World our mission is to harness the power of athletes to inspire climate action. Founded by Double Olympic Champion sailor Hannah Mills and GB rower Melissa Wilson in 2021, we work with athletes and sports organisations to provide climate and media training, mentoring, and campaign delivery, equipping athletes to use their platforms for change. Recent work has included supporting 135 professional footballers in urging FIFA to drop fossil fuel sponsorship and bringing together 450 Olympians in a letter calling on the IOC’s incoming President to make caring for our planet their top priority.

Sport For Smile (SFS) is the first platform in Japan harnessing the power of sport for social change. Being supported by globally recognized social activists including Schwab and Ashoka fellows, SFS has collaborated with UN and World Bank to promote social inclusion, and, since the Sport for Climate Framework launch, SFS has driven sustainability in Japanese pro sports through SFS Planet League, while contributing to Sport Positive Summits/Awards.

The Council’s vision is a world where responsibly produced sports events are the norm and its mission is to provide objective, independent verification of the socially and environmentally responsible work event organizers are doing and to actively support event organizers who strive to make a difference in their communities. The current version of the Council’s Certification standards (v.4.2) was developed by an outside working group of both sustainability and sport industry experts, reviewed by a wide range of stakeholders throughout 2013 and implemented in January 2014.

The Sport Ecology Group is a collective of scholars specializing in topics related to sport and the natural environment. We conduct cutting edge research, create student opportunities, liaise between the sport industry and academia, and conduct public education on sustainability and climate change in the context of sport.

GreenSportsBlog, which Lew Blaustein launched in 2013, has become “the source for news and commentary at the intersection of Green + Sports.” Its monthly audience of up to 8,000 includes sports commissioners, team and league executives, sustainability leaders, eco-athletes and more. GreenBiz, Sustainable Brands and others syndicate his work. Blaustein was trained by Al Gore and his team as a Climate Reality Leader in 2012. Since then, he has given the slide show that was at the heart of An Inconvenient Truth to 35+ schools, religious groups, businesses and more.

The Sustainability Report is the essential source of intelligence and insight for sports professionals committed to enhancing the environmental, social and economic sustainability of their organisations. For news, analysis, interviews and other exclusive content from the world of sport and sustainability