5 September, 2025

From waterlogged pitches to snowless ski slopes, the nature crisis is changing sport. Yet it is also becoming clear that sport also has the power to drive change and restore the natural world. 

That was the focus for our friends at Laureus, who recently hosted a SportsLAB Learning Session: When Sport is a Force for Nature. The session explored how sport can do more than cut its carbon footprint: it can restore ecosystems, protect biodiversity, and inspire millions of fans to care for nature.  

The BENCHES project (Biodiversity, Ecosystems and Nature Conservation Helped and Enhanced by Sports) is also helping make that ambition real. It brings together partners from World Athletics, World Sailing, S.L. Benfica, the International Biathlon Union and others, and is developing a digital biodiversity assessment tool tailored to the sports sector. It has also conducted the first economic evaluation of how athletes value natural spaces and offers training to help clubs build biodiversity into everyday decisions. 

Alongside this, the Sports for Nature Framework is rallying organisations across the sector to use their global influence to protect and restore the natural world. Leading the way is Tottenham Hotspur, the first club in the Premier League to join the Sports for Nature Framework. It has transformed its training ground into a haven for wildlife with green roofs, wildflower meadows, two wildlife ponds, over 500 bat houses and 25 bug hotels. Meanwhile, the World Surf League’s We Are One Ocean campaign is restoring mangroves and coral reefs in the same waters where its competitions take place, proving sport can give back to the ecosystems it relies on.  

And that’s the opportunity: a future where restoring wetlands, planting trees, and protecting biodiversity becomes part of the game plan, not a side project. Because when sport throws its weight behind nature, everyone wins. 

By Charlotte Pounder