Tanya Aldred: The climate crisis should be informing everything that we are doing
The climate crisis isn’t going away, and some media outlets in the United Kingdom are starting to devote more coverage to this issue becoming more-and-more relevant to our daily lives. At The Guardian, Tanya Aldred has become the publication’s chief reporter about climate and sport. Aldred sat down for an interview with The Sports Gazette about how she became invested in the subject, how sport needs to change and the journalist’s role in prompting action.
Tanya Aldred remembers the trash.
Piles of junk lying around Old Trafford Cricket Ground in the early 2000s without a single spectator seeming to care, as they walked by empty plastic cups and hot dog bags with crumbs of bread lying on the ground who were desperate for their proper home: the bin.
At the time, Aldred was building her resume as a young sports journalist. She had a passion for cricket and the environment, but she never bridged the two until that T20 match at Old Trafford.
“I walked away from that stadium thinking, I need to write something,” Aldred said in an interview with the Sports Gazette. “The amount of waste that I saw at a cricket match was shocking. I think the thing that struck me the most was watching people walk away from their seats and leave all the junk around them.”
Fast-forward to today, and Aldred is one of The Guardian’s premier sports journalists who has maintained a keen eye for climate change’s impact on her favourite sport. The Guardian chose Aldred to represent the publication in its 2021 piece titled, ‘We’re all climate journalists now’, highlighting the need for coverage on an ever-evolving global crisis.
And the crisis is non-stop. Cricket season is about to hit high gear, and schedules will be put to the sword when rain forces postponements and reschedulings due to soggy fields.
The Australian Open wrapped up its singles championships in January with Novak Djokovic once again ascending his throne, but earlier in the tournament, play needed to be suspended on the outside courts when temperatures reached the mid 30s and the tournament’s heat scale reached level five.
Playing a tennis tournament in the middle of Australia’s summer sounds like a bad idea, but Aldred thinks international events as a whole will need to be reduced to save sports and the planet. She treads carefully, knowing the importance of globalisation and its positive impacts on sport and business.
“In a perfect world you would have global competition way less frequently,” Aldred said. “That could definitely be an easy win. Cut back on the global competitions, but is there a willingness to do that?”
“I don’t think so, and I do struggle with this sometimes because really, we shouldn’t be playing any global sports, but then you’re denying a livelihood to people. You’re denying when sports move to a town or a country and all the growth benefits that come with that. It becomes a difficult one.”
The Changes Required
One constant theme from Aldred’s writing is an examination of sport’s governing bodies. Aldred argues cricketers and cricket authorities have shown no real motivation to save their game from the climate’s looming threat.
Some solutions that Aldred suggests, like clubs not making new kits every year or still producing their replica ones, cuts against a business’s bottom line. At the end of the day, a club losing revenue is the most obvious factor contributing toward a lack of action.
“I think because they’ve been so focused on making money, the environment has been seen as the silo,” Aldred said. “Employee Joe does the environment, and he handles the recycling, so it’s just been seen as this extra thing and not at the core of the clubs and sporting organisations. The climate crisis should be informing everything that we are doing.”
There are some easy solutions to combat the crisis that won’t affect a club’s bottom line. Firstly, a bigger dedication to greener energy. Aldred believes clubs can better use solar panels and wastewater without sacrificing profit. There’s always the opportunity to recycle more efficiently, but that could feel small compared to some of the bigger issues surrounding sport.
One club already making a difference is Forest Green Rovers Football Club in Nailsworth. The United Nations certified the Forest Green Rovers as the first carbon-neutral football club in the world. The club only sells vegan food at home matches, and their kits are a composite of waste coffee grounds and recycled plastic. Perhaps the eco-friendly kits aren’t sustainable across the globe, but Aldred wonders why more clubs can’t serve vegan food even once-a-month?
And finally, Aldred thinks clubs can do a better job managing their carbon footprint when it comes to away travel.
“Can you get fans to travel to the events in a greener way? There aren’t enough travel options put together by individual clubs where fans go to away matches together. Some sports are encouraging it, but it’s quite slow,” Aldred said. “It seems like everything is moving at a pace not equivalent to the current crisis we are in. From travel, to food, to kits and recycling, people seem quite resistant to necessary changes.”
If fans are to become more accepting of these changes, Aldred believes the first step is getting clubs, players and media members immersed in the climate change dialogue.
Rightfully so, racism and LBGTQ+ issues have become important aspects in the national coverage of sports. The climate crisis hasn’t quite reached their levels of national acclaim, and that’s a problem.
“There is a captive audience every time Sky Sports or the BBC broadcast a sporting event. They have the opportunity to help shift what we as viewers are talking about when the broadcast is over.” Aldred said. “You’ve got a body of people who are generally united through goodwill. If you could talk to them through sport about outside issues, you have an audience that is going to be at its most receptive.”
Role Players, and Journalists
But for that to happen, athletes themselves must join the cause. A few international stars are joining the fight.
Héctor Bellerín is a co-owner of Forest Green Rovers and one of the most outspoken sports figures on the climate crisis. Pat Cummins has taken the torch as cricket’s most outspoken proponent for the fight to save the planet, but the Australian captain has also fallen victim to one of the easiest criticisms of any person in the spotlight.
“I think people are also extremely worried about being called hypocrites,” Aldred said. “People are worried their critics can say, ‘Oh that’s all good for you to say, but you’re the one flying to India four times a year to do a competition.’ People don’t want to be called out for being a hypocrite, even when what they’re trying to say has real value.”
If athletes are going to feel comfortable speaking out on the issue, journalists can’t hunt clicks with scathing articles on their hypocrisy. Aldred believes her colleagues must do a better job finding the right balance between telling the terrifying story of climate change and finding a way to uplift and motivate.
With all the doom and gloom, there still must be an ounce of optimism if we are to survive this crisis banging down the door of sports.
But action is equally necessary.
“I’ve got three children. I did a bad thing there where I’ve had one more child than what I should have. I feel like I have to be optimistic for their sake,” Aldred said. “I try not to think too negatively, but I don’t see the urgent action happening now that so obviously needs to happen during an emergency like we’re in.”
