WEF Sports for People and Planet January 2026 Report

“These dynamics are mutually reinforcing; environmental degradation discourages physical activity, while less active populations are more susceptible to climate-related health impacts.” (Sports for People and Planet, WEF 2026)

The World Economic Forum just released its insight report on Sports for People and Planet. It explores the intersecting crises of physical inactivity and the climate crises and how they will impact the sports industry by 2030 and by 2050. This article will be exploring some of the findings of the report.

The report finds that the global economic impact of the sports industry is $2.3 trillion: $2 trillion in the core sectors of professional and elite sport ($140 billion), participatory sport and physical activity ($560 billion), sporting goods ($614 billion) and sports tourism ($672 billion); and $0.3 trillion in connected industries (broadcasting streaming, gaming, nutrition, sport services and wearables and tech softwares). By 2030 this is supposed to increase to $3.7 trillion, and by 2050 $8.8 trillion. But this is at risk: 14% of the $3.7 trillion in 2030 is at risk, equal to $517 billion and 18% is at risk in 2050 equal to $1.6 trillion. By 2050, 18% of the potential economic impact of the sport industry is at risk due climate change and physical inactivity.

I thought it was really interesting that the share of professional and elite made up such a small share of the global sports industry, only about 6% in 2025 and the share of elite and professional sports will decrease to 5% in 2030. In fact all areas of sport are expected to shrink in their share of the global sports economy except for sports tourism - rising to 41% in 2030.

The economic growth of the sport sector will be in four main areas: the acceleration of sports tourism - including adventure tourism (which doubles from 2025 to 2030 in the chart above), emergence of sports as an asset class, mainstreaming of women’s sport and the rebalancing of sports growth with emerging economies. 

The fact that sport tourism will be growing the most does not surprise me. I think the trend in society has been to experiences rather than materialism. Most people around my age are looking for things to do rather than things to buy. And I think that this is a big opportunity for sport and adventure tourism. The experiences at mutli-sport events like the Canada Games or the Olympic Games, or single sport events like the men’s and women’s World Cup are unique and you can’t get that anywhere else. In addition to this, experiences that you can get through adventure tourism will also be unique. In some of the ski towns I live close to, helicopter skiing options have exploded over the past few years. Extreme sports have become a real draw for a lot of people.

Overall, the economic impact of sport is huge. The report even highlights that in countries with mature sport markets such as the UK, Germany or the US, sports contribute between 2% and 4% of GDP. It’s only 0.3% in Canada, and only 0.5% of jobs. This tells me that we have a lot of space to grow in Canada on sports economic impact.

But upon a little reflection, I think this makes sense. Canada does not have very many professional leagues of its own. We share the NHL with the U.S. (we have 7 teams out of 32), we share MLB with the U.S. (we have one team), and we share the NBA (we have one team), we will soon be sharing the WNBA with the U.S. (we will have one team starting 2026), we share the PWHL with the U.S. (although currently equal number of teams 4 and 4). We do have our own Football League, the CFL, but only 4 million Canadians watched the Grey Cup (which is an increase of 12%), while an average of over 8 million watched the Super Bowl (NFL) (which is a decrease of 15%). Canada is utterly dominated by the U.S. sports and culture machine. This is reflective of other industries, like the wine industry (Canadian wins make up less than 50% of the domestic market, significantly below the domestic share of domestic wines in other countries), book sales attributable to Canadians authors was barely above 50% in 2022 (which was only the second consecutive year in which the majority of sales came from books by Canadian authors). The same is true with streaming services in Canada, Crave accounts for 13% of streaming in Canada - and they host a lot of American (HBO) content, CBC Gem doesn’t even register as one of the biggest streaming platforms. Sports, like other industries, are overshadowed by the United States. 

But I do not think that this 0.3% captures the full picture in Canada. This 0.3% of GDP is directly from a Stats Canada report. Below is a table breakdown of this 0.3% in Canada. I will say that this 0.3% perhaps does not capture the full picture of economic impact in Canada. The WEF report includes sport tourism, sporting goods in their calculations for the total impact of sport - and this 0.3% does not include this. 0.3% is equal to about $7.5 billion. The true economic impact of sport, when adding in sporting goods and tourism, is closer to $37.2 billion. This would make sport’s contributions to Canada’s GDP closer to 1.6%. Still below the 2% that the WEF considers a “mature sports market.” 

Just like other industries, we can watch and support more Canadian sports. I think we have started to see this happen - the 12% increase in viewers for the Grey Cup, and with the introduction of the Northern Super League, the professional women’s soccer league. We will be consuming more Canadian sports, and part of this will be driven by women’s sport - as predicted by the WEF report. But I think for us to continue to develop our sports economy we need to focus on adventure tourism. Canada’s National Park and provincial park systems are enormous and offer countless opportunities for endless experiences. Increasing access to these areas through more sustainable transportation options is the only way we can increase this. We need more trains to our natural areas that help move more people to these spaces, and at the same time increase capacity in those places due to having less cars AND helping fight climate change by reducing emissions. 

The way that our nation is currently only able to travel and see things from a car is huge hindrance to our tourism industry. When most people are travelling my age, we go on vacation to get away from cars. No one really wants to drive while they are on vacation. Addressing this will go a long way in increasing our sport tourism - and all tourism - opportunities.

There are other noted benefits to our economies such as creating more productive workforces, “with corporates investing in enhanced employee well-being strategies including physical activity having the potential to generate up to an additional $11 trillion in economic value.” These are things that employers need to keep in mind when they are implementing policies like return-to-office, which reduces the time available for employees to engage in physical activity. 

But, as mentioned, the growth of sports will be impacted by the climate crisis and physical inactivity. The impact of climate change and physical inactivity is not shared equally amongst the four core sectors of the sport industry. Only 1.6% of revenue in 2030 is at risk of professional and elite sport ($3 billion); 18% of revenue in 2030 is at risk in participatory sport and physical activity ($138 billion); 20% of revenue in 2030 is at risk in sporting goods ($168 billion); and, 11% of revenue in 2030 is at risk in sports tourism ($179 billion). I think that this is really important to note because professional and elite sports often take place indoors in arenas that are protected from natural events such as wildfire smoke (Canada’s adventure tourism industry will be hugely impacted by this - who wants to go camping under a haze of wildfire smoke?). I also think that they have the resources to protect themselves from many of the impacts of climate change, and will not be impacted largely by physical inactivity. 

The report does not offer a breakdown for which sector of sport has the largest carbon emissions or is the most carbon intensive, but I could imagine that it is more skewed towards elite and professional sports. Grassroot sports typically involve much less flying than professional sports, and the venues used in grassroot sports are shared by many more people thus the carbon footprint is shared by more people, while the venues in elite and professional sport are used much less for example. This is reflective of climate change at large: those responsible for the climate crisis are least at risk of the impacts: global north countries are largely responsible for emissions, while global south countries are more at risk of feeling the impacts. The same could be said about sports: professional and elite sports are largely responsible for emissions while grassroot sports are more at risk of feeling the impacts.

The report notes that expanding the footprint “of the sports economy is intensifying pressures on the natural systems upon which it depends, including through high resource consumption, carbon emissions, waste generation and land-use impacts. This places the sector in a dual-risk position. It is increasingly vulnerable to health and environmental deterioration while simultaneously contributing to the degradation that undermines its own future viability.”

The report offers three ‘pathways to prosperity’: championing resource stewardship, placing sport at the heart of cities and catalysing purpose-driven capital flows. Each is broken down further with specific actions. I like much of what they have to say for these recommendations, and I think that they do largely follow much of what we advocate for through Sports for Social Impact. I will offer some thoughts on just a few.

Under championing resource stewardship, the report suggests that the sport sector should scale circular business models and harness sporting events to pilot and scale sustainable materials and consumption models. They don’t name it specifically but I think that sport can better integrate the values of fair trade into their supply chain. By changing their own supply chains with a more fair trade approach, they can influence the whole supply chain into a more sustainable model. If the sporting goods industry moves to using more recycled materials (which it already is - in 2024 Adidas was able to source 99% of its polyester from recycled content), then this will influence the whole textile industry to move to recycled materials. The more people recycle, the cheaper it becomes to recycle and the more expensive it becomes to use new materials. The sport industry can also influence change through single use plastic use at their venues, by offering reusable cups, plates and utensils. It is interesting that this was not mentioned in the report specifically, but venues can essentially become a closed-loop circular economy - spectators simply have to drop off their reusable stuff on their way out and it’s fine (like they did in BC Place). These closed-loop venues can then serve as a microcosm of innovation in the circular economy space and serve as an example for all of society.

Recently we have also been seeing a large increase in companies releasing “limited edition” things, making consumers feel like they will be missing out if they don’t buy it. The sports industry needs to avoid doing this, to help reduce consumer waste. Sport teams do not need to release “limited edition” jerseys or other merchandise just to increase sales.

Under placing sport at the heart of cities, the report goes into designing sporting infrastructure for community well-being and environmental resilience and advancing sustainable mobility. Largely this section is on point. But, they really missed the mark about sustainable mobility. There was not enough focus on building more walkable and bikeable cities. I find this interesting because the report is focused on both climate change and physical inactivity. And creating more active transit options is fundamental to addressing both of these challenges, and they are sports! The report falls short in this area.

Under catalysing purpose-driven capital flows they talk about the need to create shared value and offer the example of investors partnering with philanthropic organisations to pilot reforestation initiatives within sport precincts which advance conserving biodiversity and community engagement while also enhancing the venue’s climate adaptation plans. This is exactly the type of thinking we need in the sports industry. 

Overall, I enjoyed this report. It is full of other tidbits of information that are really interesting, like the fact that professional tennis produces approximately 325 million tennis balls annually with over 95% thrown away after very little use, in the UK it is estimated that 100,000 tonnes of sporting goods is thrown away each year (equivalent to 950 shirts per minute), and that sports core industries generate an estimated 400-450 million tonnes of C02e annually. I do think that their prescriptions for solutions to the problem fall a little short. They offer many ideas on climate adaptation, resilience and reducing emissions, but I found very few ideas on addressing the physical inactivity crisis. I take their point that addressing climate change will help address declining physical activity rates, but we need to do more to get people active. Simply addressing climate change will not get people to be more active. Much more needs to be done to address that rising issue.