Key insights:

• • • Human rights and environmental sustainability in sports are inseparable — Environmental harms from major sporting events — such as pollution, extreme heat, and flooding — directly undermine fundamental human rights including health, housing, and safe working conditions.

    • Mega sporting events require an integrated, lifecycle-wide approach — From supply chains and stadium construction to urban planning and event delivery, the sports industry’s environmental footprint and human rights impacts span the full lifecycle of these events, demanding a single, integrated playbook.

    • Accountability extends to sponsors and partners, not just hosts and organizers — As scrutiny from regulators, media, and civil society grows, sponsors and corporate partners are increasingly seen as responsible for the combined human rights and environmental impacts of the events they support.

This blog post was co-written with Sreeratna Kancherla and Anna J. Christians of the Henekom Group.

Sports are entering a defining decade. The convergence of climate and nature risk, growing environmental accountability, and increasing scrutiny of how mega sporting events affect the communities that build and host them has brought a long-overdue challenge to the center of sports governance.

Due to their scale, frequency, and global reach, the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2026 and the 2028 Olympics to be held in Los Angeles, alongside competitions such as the 2027 Rugby World Cup and the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, form part of an ambitious pipeline of major events in a generation. How the sports sector responds to that challenge will shape how the next era of global sport is planned, delivered, and remembered.

Human rights due diligence during mega sporting events and environmental sustainability are often thought of as neighboring agendas, related but managed separately. In practice, however, they are inseparable. When air quality deteriorates, the right to health is at stake. When flooding displaces communities, the right to housing and livelihood is at stake. When extreme heat makes outdoor labor dangerous, the right to safe working conditions is at stake.

The environment is the condition in which human rights are either protected or violated, and sustainability, properly understood, is the commitment to preserving those conditions for current and future generations.

The need for an integrated playbook

The case for an across the lifecycle of sport reflects the scale and complexity of the sporting industry’s impact, with emissions comparable to those of a midsize country, according to . The industry’s heavy reliance on plastics across stadiums, equipment, and apparel contributes to pollution that worsens the global environmental crisis. And those environmental choices carry human consequences at every stage, for the workers who build the facilities, the residents who live alongside them, and the fans who attend the events.

The environmental footprint of the sports industry touches people across the entire lifecycle of a major event. The supply chains necessary to deliver a mega-sports event span facility development, apparel, technology, and food & beverage. These industries are among the highest risk for labor exploitation, migrant worker abuse, and unsafe working conditions. When a host city builds a stadium and hosts events there, the environmental impact is measurable and so is the human rights impact on the workers building the stadium. Indeed, this impact extends to the neighborhoods that may be displaced to make room for it, and to the residents left to live alongside its infrastructure once the event has ended.

You can find more about the resources, tools, and information that cities and organizations need to addressĚýhuman trafficking around large-scale sporting events at the Thomson Reuters Institute’s Large-Scale Public Events Toolkit here

In addition, major events that rely on street circuits or temporary urban infrastructure can significantly reshape public space and surrounding neighborhoods. Air pollution, construction zones, and rising short-term rental demand also may displace residents and the unhoused population, restrict access to services, or place pressure on already fragile housing markets. In these cases, mega-sports event planning intersects directly with citizens’ rights to housing, mobility, and access to public space.

Expanding accountability

, rooted in the , is the structured process that makes those consequences visible and gives sustainability strategy its human accountability. Because environmental and human rights impacts are inseparable in practice, that accountability extends beyond organizers and host governments to the sponsors and corporate partners of the event. Many operate in sectors which already face scrutiny over their global supply chains; and therefore, alignment with a contentious event can amplify these vulnerabilities while inviting additional public and regulatory attention.

As the regulatory landscape, advocacy groups, and the media intensify their focus on the impact of these mega-sport events, sponsors are increasingly seen not only as influential stakeholders, but as actors with a degree of responsibility for the combined environmental and human rights impacts of the events they fund and support.

Moving from principle to practice

For example, Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta — home of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons along with a venue for soccer and concerts — demonstrates that environmental performance and community impact are the same priority and can be pursued through a single design brief. Indeed, it was the first stadium worldwide to receive for zero waste, and its 2.1-million-gallon system helps prevent flooding in neighboring communities. Additionally, the stadium created targeted employment through the and delivered staff training to more than 700 people.

The same integrated logic is now being applied at the event level. Ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026, host city organizing committees in Houston and Dallas introducedĚýthat address labor exploitation, including human trafficking risks, alongside targeted environmental measures. These measures are treated as a single procurement workstream to be addressed through an integrated response.

Leadership, legacy & the decade ahead

The organizations that will define the next decade of global sports are those that treat human rights and environmental sustainability not as parallel strategies but as two expressions of the same obligation to the people and communities on which sports depend.

This means designing facilities with both environment and humanity in mind from the outset, managing worker rights and environmental standards together across supply chains, and placing extreme heat measures, labor protections, community access, and sustainability targets within a single accountable governance framework.

Governing bodies, organizing committees, sponsors, and host cities that act on this integrated approach have the opportunity to build systems that are more responsible, more durable, and more trusted to define what credible and future-ready sports event management looks like.

You can find more about the impact of mega-sporting events on communities here

In fact, since the beginning of the year, litigation related to claims around environmental initiatives, net zero statements, and forced labor issues, are the key areas of increased legal activity around greenwashing, including:

Allegations of contaminants in consumer products — There has been an increase in cases alleging that consumer products contain contaminants, such as lead and PFAS, according to , a litigation partner at Morgan Lewis. For example, a alleged that products, which were being marketing towards children, contained unsafe levels of lead.

Forced labor in supply chains — Forced labor cases are also on the rise, with a focus on those that involve supply chain issues. This reflects a broader trend towards holding companies accountable for their supply chains and the ethical implications of their sourcing practices.

, a litigation partner at the Morgan Lewis, says he sees the novel application of forced labor statutes in recent legal cases being focused on consumer claims related to economic harm caused by unethical labor practices in supply chains. These claims argue that human rights violations, such as forced labor abroad, have a direct impact on consumers who buy the end products.

Carbon neutrality claims — Litigation that is targeting companies’ net zero statements have become increasingly prevalent as companies seek to show their commitment to sustainability and appeal to environmentally conscious consumers. “You’re seeing some companies no longer making claims they’re currently carbon neutral,” says , co-head of the Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) practice at Morgan Lewis. “They still have their aspirational goal of getting there by 2030, but these legal claims are causing companies to be more conservative in statements and disclosures, rather than making specific claims about current achievements.”

At the same time, however, there is growing recognition of the need for greater regulation of carbon offset markets and more rigorous standards for verifying carbon neutrality claims. As the regulatory landscape evolves, companies will need to carefully evaluate their carbon-related disclosures and ensure they can substantiate any neutrality claims.

In addition to the expanding areas of greenwashing cases, recent changes in European Union regulations have provided more precise guidelines for judges, resulting in a shift towards more judgments confirming greenwashing claims, says , a litigation partner at Morgan Lewis based in Germany. Historically, many greenwashing allegations brought by non-governmental organization (NGOs) or consumers were dismissed. This makes this current shift noteworthy, according to Apetz-Dreier, because it represents a move towards stricter scrutiny and accountability for companies on their environmental claims.

Double-edged sword of CSRD

The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is having a significant impact on greenwashing concerns and practices in the EU. As companies prepare to comply with CSRD’s extensive ESG disclosure requirements, there is an increased focus on accurate data collection and reporting.

Indeed, the highly prescriptive nature of CSRD is pushing companies to be more cautious and specific in their sustainability claims and disclosures to potentially reduce greenwashing risks.

However, the expanded disclosures required by CSRD may also create new litigation risks themselves, as the information reported can be scrutinized by stakeholders and potentially used as a basis for further greenwashing claims. Companies are having to carefully balance compliance with CSRD against potential legal exposure, especially as the disclosures made in Europe may have implications for litigation risks globally.

Guidance for in-house lawyers

As a result of these trends and growing risks, corporate in-house lawyers need to focus their efforts to best mitigate the increasing risk exposure of greenwashing. Some of these mitigation tactics include:

Carefully reviewing marketing strategy and disclosures — Corrado recommends for corporate legal functions to take extra care in inspecting their companies’ marketing strategy, product labels, and other advertising to ensure that corporate leaders are not making misleading or exaggerated claims about their companies’ ESG practices or sustainability. The same goes for disclosure documents.

Offering forward-thinking advice and risk management — Valenstein notes that in-house lawyers should give forward-thinking advice to their internal clients, including ways to identify areas of risk exposure and develop strategies to mitigate that. They also need to educate their boardrooms and C-Suites on the risks and consequences of greenwashing.

To execute, corporate lawyers need to stay close to their companies’ external counsel in order to remain up to date on the latest legal developments and trends in greenwashing litigation. For example, “one of the things that we’ve been watching closely is when the FTC [U.S. Federal Trade Commission] is going to issue its new set of the green guides because it could lead to additional litigation based on guidance the agency puts out there about what types of disclosures companies can and should be making,” explains Lane.

Seek collaboration across departments —Lawyers at companies should collaborate with other in-house corporate functions, such as sustainability, communications, operations, and marketing, to ensure that companies’ messaging and disclosures are accurate, consistent, and compliant with regulations.

This collaboration is key to mitigate greenwashing risks. Compliance with CSRD is making data collection and accuracy — without exaggerating — in disclosures a critical activity in risk mitigation. Not doing so “can lead to future greenwashing claims, because those documents for the disclosure are also advertising materials,” Apetz-Dreier adds.

As the landscape of greenwashing litigation continues to evolve, companies must remain vigilant in their sustainability claims and practices. By having internal legal functions prioritizing these actions, companies can protect their reputations, avoid legal liabilities, and ultimately contribute to a more sustainable and trustworthy future for themselves and their stakeholders.

To mitigate these catastrophic effects, cities must adapt and increase their investment in infrastructure resilience, especially cities like Jakarta and Chicago, which are sinking.

These investments need to include solutions for waste management in cities around the globe, which is a major contributor to methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Annually, the world generates two billion tons of municipal waste, and a predicts that municipal waste mountains are set to grow by as much as two-thirds by 2050 in the Global South.

Alarmingly, 45% of this waste never reaches appropriate management facilities, causing significant emissions of methane. And a significant portion of this untreated refuse originates from urban areas in the Global South, where inadequate infrastructure often hinders proper collection, sorting, and safe disposal of waste in landfills.

Innovative tech could maximize investments in climate resilience

Cities across the globe from Houston to Singapore are embracing cutting-edge technology in the form of digital twins, which are virtual representations of a real-world objects or systems and are used to address various urban challenges. These advanced digital replicas are being utilized to monitor groundwater, mitigate urban heat islands, combat air pollution, and optimize waste management systems.

In urban settings, digital twins integrate information from vehicles, buildings, and infrastructure. They are updated with real-time data that is collected from various sources, including drones, sensors, and satellites. This data is then enhanced with input from smart devices, the vast network of internet connected technologies, and artificial intelligence, creating a comprehensive and dynamic model of the city.

These sophisticated tools allow city planners and managers to visualize, analyze, and predict urban phenomena, enabling more informed decision-making and efficient resource allocation. By leveraging digital twins, cities are better equipped to tackle complex environmental and infrastructure challenges.

Significant efficiencies from the use of this technology are also likely. By 2025, more than 500 cities could be using some form of digital twin technology, according to , sparking savings of $280 billion by 2030.

Technology poised to help drive action on waste

City mayors from around the world are — a global network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s leading cities who are united to confront the climate crisis — in order to improve waste management practices, especially around reducing methane emissions. Participating cities are striving to meet a series of 2030 targets, which include establishing city-wide waste collection services, treating at least 30% of organic waste, and reducing waste disposal emissions by a minimum of 30%.

To achieve these objectives, cities are undertaking key intervention projects, such as developing sanitary landfills equipped with technology-enabled gas capture, improving working conditions in the informal sector, and introducing a comprehensive recycling system along with a waste segregation framework.

More sophisticated tools allow city planners and managers to visualize, analyze, and predict urban phenomena, enabling more informed decision-making and efficient resource allocation

Organic materials, such as food scraps, yard trimmings, junk wood, and wastepaper, make up most landfill content. As these materials decompose, they produce biogas, which includes methane. Instead of letting this methane leak into the atmosphere or go to waste, it can be captured and used as a relatively clean energy source for generating electricity or heat. This approach offers dual climate benefits because it prevents landfill emissions and reduces the need for coal, oil, or natural gas.

For example, that utilizes technology for managing biogas uses perforated tubes that are inserted deep into the landfill to collect the gas, which is then piped to a central collection area where it can be vented or flared.

However, there are to landfill methane capture, including a lack of evidence-based data, high upfront costs, and the lack of regulations and policies. This is where collaboration through C40 and the UN Habitat’s Waste Wise Cities (WaCT) can have an impact. For example, more than 400 cities have begun using a WaCT tool to uncover exactly what is happening to their waste, and then using this information to demonstrate the need for innovation and investment in their management strategies. For example, Dakar, the capital city of Senegal, collects 95% of its waste, but only 1% is sent to managed recovery and disposal facilities, resulting in a waste recovery rate of just 4%. The city’s mayors are now leveraging this data to attract external investment with the aim of transforming waste management into a source of revenue, which is a broader opportunity for cities in the Global South.

Conclusion

As the world’s urban populations face unprecedented environmental challenges — from extreme heat, to rising sea levels, and waste management crises — many are turning toward technology for help. And cutting-edge technology solutions, such as digital twins and innovative waste management system solutions, offer a beacon of hope. By leveraging these technologies, cities can increase their investment in infrastructure resilience, mitigate the impacts of climate change, and drive significant efficiencies.

As the world’s cities continue to grow and evolve, it is essential that we prioritize investment in climate resilience and innovative technologies to create a more sustainable, equitable, and environmentally conscious urban future.

This article is based on two articles in Ěýissue on Decarbonising Cities:ĚýĚýby Amy Nguyan andĚý, by Mark Hillsdon.

Traditionally, GDP expansion has been of population increases, productivity, and debt. In the foreseeable future, however, population expansion and debt accumulation are expected to remain stagnant, placing the onus on economic growth on improving productivity, which is essential for propelling the financial prosperity of companies.

Distilling GenAI’s impact on the environment

Earlier this year, Jeff Wong, Global Chief Innovation Officer of Big 4 consulting firm EY, discussed the next frontier of technology beyond what artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) is already offering. In fact, Wong hypothesized that quantum computing could become the most disruptive technology of the near future, calling it “one of the under-talked-about topics of the world.” This is a stunning prediction given that most organizations have not yet gotten their head around the opportunities inherent in leveraging GenAI.

This reality also poses a future challenge that very few people are even talking about — the implications of GenAI and quantum computing on a sustainable future. The Climate School at Columbia University posed the question, that if indeed AI can do , “will its potential to aid decarbonization and adaptation outweigh the enormous amounts of energy it consumes? Or will AI’s growing carbon footprint put our climate goals out of reach?”

According to Wong, asking a question and getting an adequate answer from GenAI requires six- to 10-times the amount of power required to generate a response compared to a traditional Internet search. In addition, the energy that the world’s data centers consume, many of which power GenAI queries, Ěýof global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, exceeding even those of the aviation industry.

As AI models become even more advanced and intricate in the coming years, their demands for processing power and energy will also escalate. For example, oneĚýĚýthat by 2028, there will be a four-fold improvement in computing performance, and a 50-fold increase in processing workloads due to increased use, more demanding queries, and more sophisticated models that contain many more parameters. In fact, some estimate that the energy consumption of data centers on the European continent willĚý. (Even, Forbes acknowledges the surging energy demand growth from GenAI and highlights in building out and operating data centers and computing infrastructure.)

It is important that companies consider energy efficiency and sustainability when they are generating the computing infrastructure and power that GenAI needs to deliver on all the productivity gains that it promises. For example, water and other coolants are needed to absorb the heat generated by computer components, and when this liquid cooling method is implemented effectively, it and mitigates adding to harmful environmental impact. In addition, data center providers can commit to energy efficiency and environmental sustainability through adopting .

Important actions to account for emissions when investing in GenAI

, just 22% of business leaders cited sustainability impact as a top issue in GenAI deployment even as AI models advance in capabilities and complexity and require more processing power and energy consumption. To better account for GenAI’s environmental impact, companies need to take action to understand how GenAI influences their emissions footprint. Such actions should include:

Establishing a baseline — Companies should measure their emissions as the first step, a process which itself underscores the need for using a to calculate the emissions impact of prospective GenAI applications. Next, these emissions should be allocated within companies’ designated emissions budgets. In addition, companies should make a thorough evaluation to better understand the emissions generated by initial and ongoing training of large language models, the emissions impact of subsequent modifications made to those models, and their emissions during regular use.

Building in requirements for emissions accounting — When assessing GenAI models for their practical applications — or considering any new technology implementation for that matter — companies need to justify the business case and use case of these new components. Indeed, companies always should make decisions that support their sustainability objectives, and that includes evaluating if GenAI is the most suitable option for their specific business applications.

There’s no doubt that technology is moving at a faster pace, or that GenAI is the current hot technology of today. Yet tomorrow, it could be quantum computing or even the metaverse. This makes it imperative for companies to leverage the expertise of C-Suite technology leaders and their own in-house information chiefs, says Wong, especially because these roles are evolving from service delivery functions to strategic advisers. These tech leaders need to help company management understand how the convergence of technology can help fulfill business needs while making clear the total cost on the environment for this technology’s use.

The landscape at the intersection of GenAI, sustainability, and environment impact is complex, but Wong says he is not deterred. “We’re very early in this game of understanding how large language models work and how much processing power they need,” he says, adding that the power generation requirement will be solved through creativity. “A lot of people in the technology world are very attuned to the fact that sustainability is an important issue for the planet, even outside and beyond their industry.”