This year’s winners at the BBC Green Sport Awards have been unveiled…
Athlete of the Year will be announced live on The One Show on BBC One this evening, before being celebrated at the special awards event at the BBC Radio Theatre.
The awards, which are in partnership with the Sport Positive Summit are also available to watch on BBC iPlayer and across the BBC Sport website from 7pm.
Rhydian Cowley took home the award for World Athlete of the Year (formerly Young Athlete of the Year). Rhydian, who received a bronze medal in Paris this summer, supports leading environmental organisations and is an ambassador for EcoAthletes, Champions For Earth, the Sports Environment Alliance and collaborates with Bush Heritage Australia. Over the past year, he has elevated his contributions in sport and climate advocacy while qualifying for his third consecutive Olympics, including the 20k walk and the inaugural Olympic mixed race walk relay. In June 2024 he was one of 14 athletes to sign an open letter urging the International Olympic Committee to drop Toyota, accusing the Games’ major sponsor of greenwashing.
The Grassroots award was netted by Pledgeball, a research-driven charity that aims to help eliminate waste and encourage fans to think about their carbon footprint whilst travelling to and from football matches, as well as in their everyday life. Pledgeball are consistently active within the football community as their focus, but are increasingly partnering with other sports and organisations to support, promote and encourage the update of sustainable practice with their fans. Through Pledgeball in 2024, fans pledged to save 62,589,800 kg of CO2e per year, which equates to taking over 13,606.4 cars off the road.
The Evergreen Athlete of the Year (lifetime achievement) was received by professional surfer Adrian ‘Ace’ Buchan. Ace is a passionate climate advocate, playing a significant role in environmental activism. Not only is he a founding board member of Surfers for Climate, an Australian charity dedicated to combating climate change, but he is also an ambassador for WSL Pure, a non-profit working on climate crisis mitigation, coastal and marine conservation and addressing plastic pollution. In 2020, when he won the WSL Pure Award for Outstanding Ocean Advocacy, he donated the $25,000 prize money to the Climate Council.
World Athletics scooped the award for Elite Organisation of the Year after launching their Athletics for a Better World (ABW) Standards, which set a number of environmental, social and governance obligations that host cities or venues need to adhere to if they want to run a World Athletics-sanctioned event. The ABW Standard consists of 55 action areas that address all levels of event delivery-including procurement, waste management, energy, food and water management, travel and accommodation planning. In April 2024, The World Athletics Indoor Championships Glasgow 24 became the first event to be awarded platinum level recognition against the ABW Standard.
