After winning a bronze medal at Tokyo 2020 and five ATP titles during his tennis career, Marcus Daniell is now focused on making an even greater impact away from the court.
Alongside his work as an IOC Athletes’ Commission member, Marcus is the executive director at High Impact Athletes (HIA), a non-profit organisation that he co-founded with fellow Olympian Hugo Inglis.
HIA connects athletes with the most impactful charities, effecting change on multiple issues such as global health, poverty, animal welfare and climate change. Its latest project, Sport One, Carbon Zero, gives athletes a credible way to take high-impact climate action without fear of hypocrisy or backlash.
Marcus Daniel said: “The idea behind Sport One, Carbon Zero started when Hugo and I shared the same apartment at Rio 2016 and discussed how guilty we felt about flying around the world. Initially, we were interested in carbon offsetting, but it never felt quite right. It was like you’d caused all this harm just to put a Band-Aid over the top of it, instead of being forward-thinking.
“We came across incredible organisations like Giving Green and Founders Pledge, whose approach to climate action focused on how we could make the greatest impact. Sport One, Carbon Zero harnesses our collective influence as athletes to decarbonise sport and give athletes a greener future.”
Sport One, Carbon Zero re-grants contributions to four non-profit climate organisations: Opportunity Green, Clean Air Task Force, Future Cleantech Architects and Project Innerspace. HIA does not take a cut – 100% of contributions are passed on. Each organisation was chosen based on independent research done by Giving Green to reflect athletes’ main emission sources: travel, energy use, and infrastructure.
“Our four partners are some of the best at creating change in those areas, from innovation in sustainable aviation fuels to making cleaner electricity grids,” added Mr Daniel. “We want to support these pioneering organisations and package things in a way that you, as athletes, can find accessible and get involved.
“We also want to take a more forward-looking approach. Travel will continue to be necessary in sport, so how do we future-proof our climate impact? As an athlete, every day is about making marginal gains. We’re always optimising every aspect of our life, so why wouldn’t we do that when giving back, and find ways to make the biggest difference?
“Our ‘No Greenwash. No Offsets. High Impact.’ tagline means that this isn’t virtue signalling. This is being led by science and research. Initial findings show that the fund will be roughly 10 times more effective than the best offsets available in the market, and roughly 50 times more effective than planting trees.”
One mechanism that some athletes have already signed on to is taking an outcome in their sport and attaching a pledge. For example, golfer Ryan Fox has said that every time he plays a round with zero bogeys, he’ll give $1,000. By tying sporting performance to outcomes, athletes can do good for the planet while achieving in their sport, and fans can pledge alongside them too.
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