This summer, the 2026 FIFA World Cup brings 48 teams and millions of fans to 16 cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico. In New York and New Jersey alone, eight games at MetLife Stadium throughout June and July, including the World Cup final, are estimated to draw more than 1.2 million spectators, generate $3.3 billion in revenue and create 26,000 new jobs in the metropolitan area.
While the focus on the field is athletic performance on the world’s largest stage, off the field, sustainability professionals, including recent Columbia Climate School graduates, have been working on reducing the environmental impacts and promoting climate-conscious initiatives embedded in the tournament. For many, the championship offers an opportunity to connect with local communities, using sports as a platform to reach a wider audience.
“The World Cup is a really great way to start climate conversations. We can use the platform and the connection that’s already there to foster a conversation about sustainability,” shares Peyten Hernandez, M.A. in Climate & Society ‘25, who spent the past 7 months as a sustainability fellow in the FIFA26 Future Leaders Program, and has now taken on a new position as the sustainability and human rights venue supervisor at the Houston, Texas stadium.
Acknowledging their role as a global leader, FIFA has been working to lessen the environmental impact ahead of the World Cup by monitoring supply chains, energy usage and waste management for the tournament. Throughout her fellowship, Hernandez has worked on these larger projects, as well as local initiatives, including community volunteer days and tree planting programs. In collaboration with the Arbor Day Foundation, Hernandez and her team have begun a restoration effort that will include planting 1 million trees across North America, engaging communities through hands-on service.
For Hernandez, her role with FIFA is about more than sustainability; it’s about contextualizing the tournament within the cities in which it’s taking place and creating a positive impact on local communities.
“How are the games in Guadalajara impacting Guadalajara? And how are the games in Boston impacting Boston? There’s so much more than just the game itself; it’s the lead-up, the fan fest, the travel… it’s impacting the people who live in these cities for over two months,” she said.
These questions of sustainability, local impact and global leadership are not unique to this year’s World Cup. Across the Atlantic, Fiona Flaherty, M.A. in Climate & Society ‘24, has been tackling similar challenges in sports sustainability in her role as an associate at Think Beyond in London, where she works with sports organizations and brands to improve their sustainability, impact and value. For Flaherty, whose entry into the field was through her passion for motorsport, athletics is a perfect entryway into sustainability. “It’s a really interesting market to be in because you have all these different impacts, and all these different entry points and levers that can be pulled and impacted by climate.”
Not only do sports open the door to discussions about climate and sustainability, but they are equally affected by climate impacts. Extreme heat cancels games; flooding, drought and natural disasters threaten facilities; poor air quality endangers athletes. FIFA is prepared for all of the above, with contingency plans including mandatory water breaks above a certain heat threshold and preparedness trainings and extreme heat mitigation research conducted by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Climate School.
While FIFA showcases the need for sustainability within sports on the global and professional level, both Hernandez’s and Flaherty’s interests stemmed from their own communities.
“So much of why I love sports is it brings people together. Sports is what gave me a community growing up. That was my whole childhood. Now I get to work behind the scenes and bring such a huge tournament to life and continue to work with the community,” says Hernandez.
Growing up playing soccer in Tampa Bay, Florida, and connecting her passion with an undergraduate degree in event management and sustainability, Hernandez navigated a bare landscape where connections were not yet being drawn between her work and her sport.
Now, she wonders if it’s even possible to avoid drawing these connections. Extreme heat and climate resilience now add to the complex web of challenges faced by the youth leagues she grew up in, where young girls and marginalized athletes already struggle to see themselves represented.
“A lot of the same people who don’t see themselves represented in sports are also really caring about the environment and the state of our planet,” she said.
By 2030, over 20% of nations participating in the Olympics are at risk of losing their sports due to the impacts of climate change. “That has huge consequences for the professional growth and development of sport, and also for the development of athletes and people who are making athletics a career,” according to Flaherty.
Community and youth sports organizations have been grappling with similar challenges for years. As Flaherty points out, “the majority of sustainability energy, time, focus and knowledge is invested at the pro level, when the impacts are being felt most acutely at the grassroots level.”
At Think Beyond, Flaherty works with teams and organizations across scales to bring knowledge from community networks to the pro level.
“There’s so much that we can learn from the community networks, the people who know their communities really well, people who are really invested in the success of young people, and building young people holistically, not just as athletic performers,” she said.
For Hernandez and Flaherty, while positions at consultancy agencies and in sports leagues and teams are important steps forward, their work is just the beginning.
Hernandez hopes that her work will inspire more sustainability leadership in professional sports, starting at the individual level. “Never has a major mainstream athlete said, ‘my sport is going to be impacted if we don’t treat the planet better,’” she said.
As Flaherty continues her work at Think Beyond, she hopes the sports sustainability industry can shift people from awareness toward engagement. “That’s what changes behavior, and that’s what sustainability has the power to do in sport,” she said.
