The challenges for sustainability in sport, driven by fan expectations, sponsor requirements and, generally, how events are judged publicly, are becoming increasingly louder. It is all a question of understanding the structural constraints that shape how sustainability can evolve in sport beyond isolated solutions.
At the same time, the structure of sport is moving in the opposite direction. Calendars are expanding. Events are becoming more complex. Fan expectations around experience continue to rise. The two biggest sporting events from this year – the FIFA World Cup and the Winter Olympic Games – are evident of that.
The result is a widening gap between sustainability ambitions and what sports current operating model allows. This is not a question of isolated solutions. It is about understanding the structural constraints that shape how sustainability can evolve in sport. The developments outlined in this article represent progress, but so far, they do not fundamentally change the underlying system.
More than half of fans (56%) and 70% of industry professionals now see climate change as an existential threat to sport according to the Sports Industry Report 2026. That concern is translating into behaviour. Sport is making practical sustainability progress, but much of that progress sits inside a commercial and operational model that is still expanding, resource-intensive and difficult to change.
How quickly can sport realistically adapt to sustainability challenges? Can sport meaningfully adapt within its current models at all, or are most sustainability efforts destined to remain incremental improvements within an unchanged structure?
Much of the sustainability conversation in sport still centres on infrastructure. New arenas are being designed with energy efficiency in mind. Existing venues are being retrofitted. Renewable energy investments are becoming standard in venue development.
These are tangible improvements. They are also necessary. But they do not fundamentally change the nature of energy demand in certain sports.
Ice hockey is one of them. Maintaining ice surfaces, cooling large indoor arenas and running year-round facilities is inherently energy intensive. Efficiency gains can reduce consumption, but they do not remove the baseline requirement.
The Swiss Life Arena in Zurich is one of the clearer examples of what the future of venue infrastructure could look like in ice hockey.
The arena was built to reuse the energy it generates. Heat produced through the cooling process is captured and redistributed within the building, warming interior spaces and supplying hot water. Beyond that, excess energy is fed back into the city’s wider energy network, contributing to heating for surrounding households. Renewable sources, including solar, are integrated into the system powering both the arena and its cooling infrastructure.
These represent a more considered approach to how venues are designed and operated, and they show what is possible when sustainability is built in from the outset rather than retrofitted.
Artificial ice installations offer another way to extend the experience beyond the arena without the same cooling requirements. One will be used in the fan zone during the 2026 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Switzerland. It’s not a precursor to rolling out the practice to competitive ice hockey, and whilst on paper it looks like a clear step forward in practice, it is more complicated. Questions around the environmental impact of synthetic materials, including microplastics, have shifted the debate. The trade-off becomes less about energy versus no energy, and more about one form of impact versus another.
Circular energy system improvements like the setup at the Swiss Life Arena are viewed as being more energy efficient. But such changes to existing arenas can be costly. Artificial ice installations may reduce the need for energy-intensive cooling, but they are not impact-free. The question is therefore not whether artificial ice is "sustainable" or "unsustainable", but whether it offers a lower-impact solution in a specific context.
If infrastructure is the visible side of sustainability, event operations are where most of the complexity sits.
The footprint of a sports event is not limited to the venue. It extends across logistics, broadcast production, equipment transport, staffing and, crucially, fan travel. This is where emissions scale quickly and where control becomes limited.
One important approach to understanding this complexity and managing operations is measuring carbon footprint. Infront, for example, is continuously developing its carbon accounting aligned with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol to track emissions across its business, including indirect Scope 3 sources such as travel and supply chain activity.
That matters because much of sport’s impact sits outside direct control. But it also highlights the challenge. Measurement is still being refined, data is often incomplete and the largest sources of emissions are the hardest to influence. Understanding the footprint is a necessary step, but it does not,in itself, reduce it.
Organisers are also adapting. There is more focus on reducing waste, streamlining logistics and rethinking operational workflows. Broadcast production is evolving, with remote production models reducing the need for large on-site teams and equipment.
But the biggest variable remains fan travel. It is often the largest contributor to an event’s carbon footprint and the hardest to influence.
Different approaches are emerging. Some events include public transport in matchday tickets such as the London 2012 Olympic Games and EURO 2024. Germany’s KombiTicket, which covers free travel to Bundesliga matches on local services has also seen much success.
Others discourage car use through pricing, such as high parking costs. More recently, positive behavioural incentives include app-based loyalty programmes to nudge fans towards more sustainable choices.
These are pragmatic interventions. They acknowledge a simple reality; organisers cannot control how fans travel, but they can influence the conditions around those decisions.
The next step is less about influence and more about requirement. Isolated actions will remain part of the picture, but meaningful progress increasingly depends on sustainability being built into hosting agreements, supplier contracts, sponsorship briefs and event delivery standards.
Without that, sustainability risks remaining a collection of good examples rather than a consistent way of operating. With it, expectations become clearer, accountability improves and progress becomes repeatable across events rather than dependent on individual initiatives.
The third area where activity is increasing is circularity. This is where many of the most visible and engaging initiatives are emerging.
Across ice hockey, particularly at club level and within competitions like the Champions Hockey League, there has been a rise in upcycling and reuse projects. Old banners turned into merchandise. Equipment repurposed. Local sustainability programmes embedded into club operations.
Some events are pushing this further by embedding circularity into the event model itself. The Rome Marathon is a good example. Waste streams are planned in advance, with materials collected, sorted and reused locally, rather than treated as post-event clean-up. Cups, packaging and on-course waste are designed to be recovered and re-enter the system.
Water provision is a good example. In a marathon this is not optional, but a safety requirement. Organizers essentially have three options:
Each of these comes with trade-offs that are not always obvious from the outside.
The choice often comes down to what works best both functionally for the race and within the capabilities of the local waste management system. In case of the Rome Marathon, carton packaging (Tetrapak) was selected because it can be processed within the paper recycling stream and effectively recovered where the infrastructure is in place.
Despite all considerations made, what is often visible to the public is a “carpet” of containers along the route, typical of any marathon. The optics aren’t positive on the surface, but the underlying efforts are there.
Runners need to manage hydration on the move, and perfect disposal isn’t always possible. However, from an impact perspective it matters most what happens next: rapid collection and proper sorting, which in the case of Rome was handled efficiently.
Sustainability is becoming more embedded in how sport operates commercially than ever before.
Event hosting requirements are evolving. Sponsors are placing greater emphasis on environmental and social impact. Fans are starting to expect a level of accountability alongside entertainment.
Sustainability is starting to influence who partners with whom, and on what terms. The FIS Nordic Skiing World Championship’s partnership with Stora Enso reflects that direction. The collaboration goes beyond traditional brand exposure, focusing on how materials, infrastructure and event delivery can align brand values and sustainability objectives.
It is a sign of where sponsorship is moving. Less about visibility in isolation, more about relevance to the way events are run. That raises the bar. It is no longer enough to attach a brand to an event or a property. There is increasing expectation that partners contribute to how these evolve.
The commercial stakes are still not insignificant. The WEF report referenced above explains that, if left unaddressed, climate change and related factors could reduce the sports economy by up to 14% by 2030, rising to 18% by 2050. Whilst this may seem fatalist, we have already seen some signs of disruption when it comes to excessive heat. Seventy-eight athletes suffered exertional heat illness during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, despite all the countermeasures put in place. The importance to keep athletes, venue staff and fans safe is paramount. But on top of that, there could be a trickle-down effect, leading to event rescheduling or cancellation and, as a result, media or sponsorship revenue impact. Such examples are equally possible for other environmental disasters, such as flooding, droughts and poor air quality.
Sports and organisations that acknowledge the tensions early, rather than presenting simplified narratives, will be better positioned. Not just reputationally, but operationally.
The most important signals are not found in individual initiatives, but in how different parts of the system begin to align. Where operations, commercial strategy and fan experience move in the same direction, sustainability becomes more than an ambition.
The challenge is not to present sport as sustainable overnight. It is to navigate trade-offs honestly, connect sustainability to core decisions and accept that progress will often be incremental.
This is starting to influence how events are delivered and how partnerships are evaluated. Sustainability is no longer a separate topic. It is becoming part of how sport operates.
Infront’s role is to connect these layers. Operations, commercial strategy and fan experience are not separate conversations but increasingly shape each other.
The next step is to understand how these dynamics translate into commercial decisions and event delivery in practice. This is where sustainability moves from ambition to implementation.