🟢 Building Credible Net-Zero Strategies in Sport
As sustainability budgets tighten across the sports industry (I am sure most other sectors recognize this trend), the organizations getting it right are moving past pledges toward audited, standards-based Net-Zero strategies.
In this Sustainability Deep Dive, we sit down with Benjamin Camus, Senior Director at Evolution Markets, who has spent the last several years helping motorsport teams, federations, and major sporting events develop Net Zero carbon strategies that withstand scrutiny.
1. Sustainability has faced a tougher business environment over the past two years. What have you seen within sports companies in the last 2 years? How have things changed or stayed the same?
Sustainability has definitely faced budget pressure and some fatigue over the past two years, but I’d push back gently on sport being swept into that narrative wholesale. What I’ve seen across our clients in the motorsport industry and other major leagues in the US and Europe is less “sustainability” as a communications exercise and much more of it becoming an operational requirement: audited Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventories, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14064-1 certification, Science-based Target Initiative (SBTi)-aligned targets, and other sectoral requirements or regional regulations.
Sponsors, investors, and other stakeholders are now asking for evidence. So, while marketing budgets for sustainability may have shrunk, the technical and compliance side has grown. The organizations we work with are more serious, not louder. They’ve focused on credible frameworks like the British Standards Institution (BSI) Net-Zero Pathway, SBTi, or ISO 14068 rather than headline pledges that can’t survive scrutiny.
2. You’ve worked with governments, global companies, and the sports industry. What’s the biggest misconception leaders still have about carbon markets and their role in a credible net-zero strategy?
That carbon markets are a shortcut: buy some credits, call it Net-Zero, move on. In a credible strategy, carbon credits only enter the picture after you’ve measured your full Scope 1, 2, and 3 footprint and built a genuine decarbonization roadmap. They exist to address unabated and/or residual emissions, not replace reduction.
The second misconception is that all credits are equal. Additionality, permanence, no double counting, and no leakage. These criteria determine whether a credit is worth anything at all, and frameworks like Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) and Airport Carbon Accreditation are increasingly explicit about project type and vintage.
Leaders who understand this treat carbon markets as a precision tool for the last mile of their strategy, not a blanket solution, and that distinction is exactly what separates a durable Net-Zero carbon claim from a greenwashing headline. Rephrasing and weaving in a long-term Net-Zero target into a comprehensive decarbonization strategy are critical steps in establishing a credible solution.
3. When you’re talking to sports executives, how do you make the business case for climate action beyond simply reducing emissions?
Emissions reduction, so the company saves, is the entry point, not the pitch. The conversation that lands with executives is about resilience and access: energy efficiency work that cuts operating costs at venues; sponsors and broadcasters who now screen partners on ESG credentials before signing; insurers and lenders who price climate risk into venue financing; and fans — increasingly younger and more vocal — who notice whether a club or federation is credible on this or just performing. There’s also a simpler point: professional sport happens outdoors, on fixed calendars, in front of the public. That makes it one of the most visible test cases for climate adaptation, which is exactly why frameworks like UN Sports for Climate Action have gained so much traction. When done well, climate action is now a conversation about brand, cost, and risk as much as an environmental one.
4. The World Cup has once again highlighted the growing impact of extreme heat on sport. Is climate change becoming a competitiveness issue for the sports industry? And what practical steps should organizers and governing bodies be taking today to raise awareness and adapt?
Absolutely — extreme heat isn’t a future risk for sport, it’s a current operating condition, and the World Cup has made it impossible to ignore. It’s already affecting scheduling, player welfare, and how governing bodies are perceived if they look reactive rather than prepared.
The practical steps already exist to build heat-risk assessment into venue planning and match scheduling now, not after an incident. Invest in cooling infrastructure and hydration protocols, and treat heat adaptation as part of the same climate risk assessment that feeds your decarbonization roadmap, rather than a separate issue.
Organizers who fold this into their broader Net-Zero and sustainability governance — instead of bolting it on as a PR response — will be far better positioned, and will look considerably more credible to players, fans, investors, and other stakeholders.
5. If you were giving one piece of advice to someone starting their career in sustainability today, what skill or mindset would you tell them to develop first?
Get fluent in the technical fundamentals before you get fluent in the language of sustainability marketing. GHG accounting, ISO standards, the mechanics of carbon markets, these aren’t the glamorous part of the job, but they’re what earn you credibility in the room with a CFO or a sponsor’s legal team.
The mindset that matters most is translation: being rigorous enough to understand the science and the standards, and clear enough to make the business case in language a non-specialist executive will actually act on. The people who last in this field are the ones who can do both.