Event sustainability – Managing the environmental footprint of a sports event

James Stibbs and Toby Hanscomb

While the concept of sustainability has become increasingly relevant to both household and business decision-making, its continually pressing nature means that it is highly unlikely to disappear from our agendas any time soon. Even assuming that the world’s climate returns to some kind of equilibrium in due course, it is likely that sustainability will be a key a factor in efforts to keep it there. It is therefore worth considering how sport – a sector for whom, globally, climate adaptation is less possible than most – can play its part in reducing its carbon footprint. While the sector has adopted a range of good practices in recent years, there is no sense it can stand still. As Orjan Lundberg, Sustainability Expert to the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy at the 2022 FIFA World Cup puts it in an interview for this case study: