WEF's Sports for People and Planet Report
First thoughts on the newly published report
Last week saw the release of the Sports for People and Planet report, published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in collaboration with Oliver Wyman (a management consultancy firm). This post offers some first thoughts on it, with particular attention to the environmental challenges it addresses.
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WEF reports are written particularly for senior leaders and policy people. Oddly, sport-and-sustainability analysis targeted for this audience has been largely absent until now. It means that this report matters both in its own right and also because it is important to understand the latest thinking being targeted to global leaders.
The sports economy: scale and structure
The report’s headline focus is on the long-term growth of the sports economy, and how rising physical inactivity and escalating environmental pressures could undermine it. The “sports economy” is defined in the report as having four core industries. Three of the industries stand out in terms of their current size by revenue: sports tourism ($672bn), sporting goods ($614bn), and participatory sport and physical activity ($560bn). The fourth, “professional and elite sport”, is relatively small, at $140bn, which was a bit of a surprise to me, but maybe shouldn’t have been. Other connected industries contribute a further $0.3tn in annual revenue.
While the report describes these industries and their interdependencies, a minor but relevant gap for me is that it does not clearly quantify overlaps - for instance, how much of sports tourism or sporting goods spend is directly driven by elite sport? More importantly, it would have been valuable to include quantified environmental impacts by core industry segment too, to show how revenue and footprint align.
That said, the report cites an aggregate emissions estimate of 400-450M tCO₂e a year for sport’s core industries, which it says are “comparable to the national emissions of major industrialized economies.” The source and method for the aggregate emissions are not clearly set out to my eyes, though this is in the ballpark of a previous estimate. Even so, further data and research in this area would be good to see.
Growth forecast - and a major risk warning
The report forecasts the sports economy growing from $2.3tn today to $3.7tn in 2030 and $8.8tn by 2050, led by rapidly expanding sports tourism, which is expected to grow from $672bn to $1.5tn in 2030 (sports tourism in particular is receiving growing attention, as can be seen by an EU Parliament briefing published on the same day). Other growth drivers usefully highlighted in the report are: the emergence of sport as an asset class; the mainstreaming of women’s sport; and a rebalancing of sports growth towards emerging economies.
However, the report argues, the sector is at an inflection point: rising physical inactivity, climate change and nature loss “could erode up to $1.6tn in annual revenue” by mid-century and undermine the sector’s broader impact. This is one of the standout figures - and it hits home. It places sustainability not as a “nice-to-have”, but as a material business risk. And putting that figure another way, I’d say this works out to around 18% of the projected 2050 sports economy that could be at risk.
Given the focus placed on the $1.6tn figure, it would be helpful to see further detail in the future than is provided on it at this time. For instance: How much of the revenue at risk is about physical inactivity, versus climate and nature-related factors? Is the $1.6tn “at risk” already reflected in $8.8tn growth projection, or is extra on top of that? Is the estimate an expected outcome, a worst-case projection, or something else? What climate models / pathways are being used? And is both climate mitigation and adaptation accounted for, and if so, what does that show?
A short technical annex or methodology note would make these headline numbers more useful for leaders and other readers alike.
Even so, the bigger point stands. This is an important contribution to a nascent and essential area of understanding: the financial impacts of insufficient action on physical inactivity and environmental degradation. It helps move sustainability beyond the “nice-to-have” category for some and into core business thinking - something that has not always been reflected in sport governance debates (including, for instance, in debates on the scope of the Independent Football Regulator in the UK).
A vision and three pathways - but bigger questions remain
The report aims to set out:
“a new vision for sport that aligns financial performance with planetary boundaries and societal well-being”.
It identifies three pathways: championing resource stewardship, placing sport at the heart of cities, and catalysing purpose-driven capital flows. The report includes innovative examples that make the pathways feel real. The pathways themselves are also novel and an interesting way to look at the issues that deserves further attention.
Importantly, the report does not suggest these steps alone will deliver the vision. Instead, it puts collaboration at its heart, arguing the challenge demands “urgent, systemic, multistakeholder collaboration”, alongside bold leadership and strengthened governance. As a next step, WEF says it intends to convene decision-makers across the sports economy to facilitate partnerships and support joint initiatives with measurable shared impact.
The focus on collaboration, leadership, and governance is welcome - and are themes covered here in this newsletter previously. That said, it would also be valuable to see greater recognition of the role that policy, regulation, and the full range of institutional tools can play in addressing environmental challenges, particularly given their scale and urgency.
Perhaps more fundamentally, the report invites bigger questions about the vision being put forward for the sports economy. For instance: is it clear? Is it fair? Is it achievable? And perhaps the biggest question - is it the right one?
A deeper tension? growth and climate compatibility
Within those questions, there’s an awkward question sitting at the heart of things. Much of the projected expansion - particularly through sports tourism - is built on patterns of mobility and consumption that are still structurally high-carbon. In a world of shrinking carbon budgets and increasing climate risks, the question is not only how sport reduces emissions at the margin, but whether this sports economy growth model is compatible with the international Paris Climate Agreement at all.
This matters because the biggest chunks of sport’s footprint aren’t easy wins. Aviation travel for sport, embodied carbon in construction of stadiums, and global supply chains for merchandise are all areas where incremental carbon efficiencies may well be outpaced by emissions from growth in demand. Without facing that head-on, there is a risk that sustainability becomes a parallel track - while the core growth model keeps driving emissions up.
This is an issue that has been touched on in a 2025 report prepared for the French Football Federation and other French sports bodies. The report sets out decarbonisation scenarios for football and rugby consistent with France’s national climate‑neutrality trajectory. However, it notes that none of these “reconcile climate goals with an increase in spectator numbers and/or international matches; at best, these numbers will need to stabilise”.
If sport is serious about aligning with planetary limits, it seems it will have to consider not just cleaner operations, but the need for, and extent of, hard structural choices. This includes things like rethinking calendars and competition formats to reduce long-haul travel; balancing local participation over ever-more distant spectatorship; designing hosting decision-making processes that elevate environmental criteria in decisions and delivery; and using policy and regulation - not only voluntary collaboration - to change incentives.
These are bigger issues than this post can address. More scrutiny of the vision is hopefully something that will come out in the collaborative efforts WEF intends to take forward.
What next?
For those not directly involved in the further planned discussions, this could nonetheless represent — to use the WEF’s own language — an inflection point. It feels like there is a need to consider both:
How to engage with, and influence, the next stage of WEF’s work, and
What other deeper collaborative approaches are needed aside from WEF’s work - including potentially different visions, pathways, and plans for the future of sport.
Final points
A few final points that jumped out for me:
The scale of the challenge. WEF’s 2026 Global Risks analysis identifies both multilateralism under strain and also environmental concerns being deprioritised in the short term. The data in the report also reinforces how pessimistic many leaders are about the environmental outlook over the next decade. These add to the challenge set out in this report.
“Planetary boundaries” needs sharper definition. The report uses the language of planetary boundaries but it does not translate this into quantified carbon and nature budgets or a practical programme. Alongside this, while it gives nods towards frameworks such as the UN Sports for Nature Framework further work must make clear what alignment would require in practice.
Do we need a sport sector roadmap? Relatedly, I’ve previously argued that football lacks a sector roadmap and, where it has them, has targets based more on ambition than analysis. The WEF report sketches useful pathways but a roadmap would go further, setting out a high-levels emissions reduction path, time-bound milestones, resources, tools, dependencies and more. WEF’s next phase could be well placed to convene stakeholders around developing that kind of roadmap.
Spectator travel: strong on land transport, weaker on aviation. The report provides useful, quantified analysis of fan travel emissions and how these could be cut through shifts to public transport and active mobility. It also flags aviation as a major contributor to sport-related travel emissions. The gap is that it does not offer comparably detailed and concrete quantification and scenarios for aviation to the ones it offers on land transport.
An emerging elephant in the room? Sports tourism growth. Relatedly, the report says it expects major expansion in sports tourism - and notes it could account for the lion’s share of total sports economy revenue growth to 2030. Yet this is also the segment where aviation dependence, climate exposure, and emissions intensity are hardest to ignore. This could become one of the defining challenges for sport and sustainability in the next decade, and should be a key area for further work.
Who is in the room? The report says it draws on consultations with 125+ organisations, which adds a sense of breadth of the perspectives behind it. It is not clear from the published report whether fan representative bodies were among them, or if/how fan perspectives will be taken into account in the next phase. Fans can be key to co-design of strategy, not just delivery.
Summary
In conclusion, this is an important and must-read contribution, with a lot riding on what happens next. With further work planned - and some difficult questions still unresolved - it’s clearly a milestone rather than an endpoint.
I’d be particularly keen to hear people’s views. Whether you agree with what I’ve said above, vehemently disagree, or have other points to make, or perhaps a post of your own on the report, do get in touch. Feel free to comment below, or drop me a line if you’d like to discuss directly. And as ever, clarifications and corrections are more than welcome too.
Further reading:
Breaking down the $2.3trillion global sports economy - 10 of the most arresting numbers in the document by Matt Slater for The Athletic.
Sport and the Planet: Why the $8.8 Trillion Sports Economy Depends on Nature in Global Sustainable Sport.
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Fran James (he/him)
Football and Climate Change Newsletter
info@footballandclimate.org
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