Leveling the Playing Field: Elite Athletes Demanding Climate Reform 🏆

— Written by Hana Leshner

From Podium to Soap Box

Athlete climate advocacy is the strategic use of a professional sporting platform to demand systemic environmental reform rather than just promoting personal lifestyle tweaks. For decades, traditional team managers gave players a simple, rigid instruction: stick to sports.  But as the climate crisis worsens, many professional athletes are choosing to push back and speak out.

Throwing Environmental Heat: Brent Suter ⚾

Out on the diamond, one Major League Baseball player is taking a highly calculated approach to environmental policy. Los Angeles Angels pitcher Brent Suter is not your average big leaguer. Long before he began striking out professional batters, he graduated from Harvard University with a degree in environmental science and public policy.

Suter practices what he preaches at home with solar panels and compost piles, but he knows individual action is only the warmup. He leverages his athletic platform to advocate for sweeping legislative change.  In 2020, he added his name to the bipartisan Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act to put a price on carbon emissions. Most recently, he has kicked it up a notch, speaking out against fossil sponsors in baseball.  As an ambassador for Players for the Planet and EcoAthletes, the left-handed throwing star is proving that the climate movement has a serious ace in its bullpen.

Carving a Systemic Path: Sierra Quitiquit ⛷️

Up in the mountains, professional freeskier and model (and Climate Creator to Watch 2025)  Sierra Quitiquit is watching her pristine playing field dissolve into mud. Rather than focusing on a checklist of personal lifestyle tweaks, Quitiquit leverages her global platform to organize real political weight as an ambassador for Protect Our Winters (POW).

Founded by legendary snowboarder Jeremy Jones, POW unites athletes, scientists, and creatives to push for non-partisan climate legislation. Instead of just suggesting skiers change their lightbulbs, they lobby for clean energy infrastructure and vote for systemic change. Quitiquit knows that saving her sport requires changing how we produce and use energy, proving that outdoor champions are ready to play hardball in the halls of government.

Sidelining Sportswashing in Cortina ❄️

Winter competitors face a literal meltdown. As athletes arrived in Italy for the 2026 Winter Olympics, alpine training grounds faced severe snow unreliability, forcing crews to pump millions of cubic feet of resource-intensive artificial snow onto the slopes.

The absurdity of competing on a entirely manufactured mountain drove winter stars to take a bold stand. A coalition of Olympians—including freestyle skier Alex Hall and Greenlandic biathlete Ukaleq Slettemark—signed a petition urging the International Olympic Committee to ban fossil fuel sponsorships. They argued that accepting millions of dollars from oil conglomerates like Eni directly undermines the Games’ sustainability goals. If sports organizations want a future with snow, they must stop partnering with the corporations melting it away.

Drawing a Line in the Sand: Surfers for Climate 🏄‍♂️

Out in the lineup, ocean athletes are trading their casual stereotypes for heavy-duty policy battles. Professional longboard champion Belinda Baggs co-founded Surfers for Climate with Johnny Abegg in 2019 after realizing that changing ocean chemistry was throwing marine ecosystems out of balance.

Instead of just hosting local beach cleanups, this Australian charity organizes massive paddle-outs to fight fossil fuel projects, successfully pressuring the government to ban offshore exploration in New South Wales waters. Baggs is proving that surfers are a force of nature when they unite to protect their home breaks. When you spend your life riding waves, saving the ocean is simply second nature.

Take a 15-Minute Climate Action 📣

Most local rec, youth, and high school leagues don't have standard safety guidelines for extreme weather, forcing coaches to make risky, ad-hoc decisions on smoky or sweltering days.

• Step 1: Audit. Search your local soccer, Little League, or running club's website for an extreme heat or Air Quality Index (AQI) policy.

• Step 2: Propose. Send a friendly email to the league director. Urge them to adopt a standard weather safety matrix (like the CDC's outdoor activity guidelines) so players are never forced to compete in hazardous air.

• Step 3: Rally. Share the draft with other parents in your team's group-chat to build support. Let's keep our athletes safe.

Events & Workshops  📆 🌍️ 

• Climate Creator Pitch Competition: Audiences decide in seconds what to click, keep watching, and share. This workshop is about competing for that attention, turning a climate idea into a story with character, conflict, stakes, and a point of view. ​Open to creators at any level, from first-time content makers to experienced filmmakers. Register for the Workshop here

• Can the Energy Crisis Finally Unite Us? A panel of experts in energy and media are coming together at ASU to discuss how the future of energy can bring us together, followed by a free reception. Register for the event here.