Sport is often celebrated as a unifying force, a shared language that transcends borders and identities, and many times politics too. But when examined through an environmental lens, sport reveals a far more complicated story. This contradiction is effectively exposed in a game like golf-- cloaked in the imagery of nature, tranquility, and green landscapes, yet deeply entangled with ecological stress.
Hidden costs of sport
More than 38,000 golf courses, globally, are visual symbols of environmental harmony: rolling lawns, ornamental water bodies and meticulously maintained fairways. But a single 18-hole course can consume millions of litres of water annually, often in regions already experiencing water scarcity. Across parts of Asia, Africa, and the western United States, golf courses remain lush even as neighbouring communities ration drinking water or depend on tanker supplies. Golf is not an environmental anomaly. It is a window into a much larger truth about modern sport: elite leisure activities are routinely insulated from ecological limits. But the environmental footprint of sport extends far beyond golf courses.
Mega-sporting events, from international football tournaments to global athletics meetings, reshape cities and landscapes at scale. Stadium construction consumes enormous quantities of steel, concrete and land. Waste generation, from food packaging and single-use plastics to promotional merchandise soars, leaving host cities to manage the aftermath long after. Sports facilities demand water-intensive maintenance for pitches, cooling systems, sanitation and hospitality.
In response, the sports world has begun to speak the language of sustainability. Carbon-neutral tournaments, plastic-free pledges, and biodiversity commitments are now common in official communications. Initiatives such as the United Nations Environment Programme’s Sports for Nature framework attempt to move beyond rhetoric.
The initiative calls on sports organisations to set a baseline for their impacts, align with the mitigation and conservation hierarchy (avoid, reduce, restore, renew), work with environmental partners and use their platforms to educate and advocate for nature. It recognises that sport is not merely a cultural spectacle but a land- and resource-intensive sector with material ecological consequences. This shift is important. For the first time, sport is being framed as an actor within the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. By encouraging federations, clubs and event organisers to assess dependencies on ecosystems, identify priority species and habitats and redesign infrastructure with biodiversity in mind, Sport for Nature introduces a structural lens into a field long dominated by carbon accounting alone.
From pledge to accountability
Because of its visibility and influence, sport has the capacity to reshape norms at scale. Stadiums and sports facilities can become models of water-positive design, renewable energy use, and zero-waste systems. Sporting calendars can adapt to heat stress rather than pushing athletes and ecosystems beyond safe limits. Governing bodies can tie hosting rights and sponsorships to measurable environmental and social outcomes, rather than voluntary pledges. Most importantly, sport can help challenge the idea that spectacle justifies excess.
In a climate-constrained world, sustainability cannot mean preserving existing models with minor efficiencies at the margins. It must mean rethinking how sport uses land, water, energy and materials and who bears the costs of that use.
As climate impacts intensify, the question is no longer whether sport should engage with environmental responsibility, but how honestly it is willing to confront its own contradictions. Golf, with its pristine fairways and hidden footprints, merely brings those contradictions into sharper focus.
Sport can continue to be a story of excess, dressed in green language and good intentions. Or it can become a space where planetary limits are taken seriously and acted upon. Can India and its sports fraternity take over the mantle of quality sport that is environmentally friendly – not just for the Planet but also for the players and audience?
(Balakrishna Pisupati is Head of UNEP India Office and Flavia Lopes the Programme Officer. Views are personal)