About Us
Welcome! If you’ve found your way here you are probably working inside a sports organisation and trying to make positive environmental or social changes, or you’re interested in how sport can support positive change. It’s lovely to see you, hello.
Our Founder, Claire Poole, set up Sport Positive in 2018, but had worked at the nexus of sport and sustainability since 2014, and before that in sustainability, climate change and bioenergy large-scale Summit’s and external communications for more than a decade.
With this particular skill set, she saw incredible work happening all over the world, but nobody was yet connecting the dots at a global level. So she set out doing what she does best; connecting people and ideas, creating communities and understanding what the biggest challenges and opportunities facing sport was. From that, she supported UN Climate Change in their work to bring together what is now UN Sports for Climate Action, and launched Sport Positive.
If you’ve had a look around this website, you’ve seen what we do; convene people at the award-winning Summit, share data and benchmarking through the Leagues, share insights and intelligence through the Podcast and Newsletter. We support the global sports industry, at an elite and community level, to use the reach, power and influence it holds to play a role in tackling the climate, biodiversity and justice crises. We want to protect the sports we love, and enable them to continue long into the future.
Over a decade since that first foray into connecting sport to her sustainability expertise, Claire is now a global leader, advisor, contributor, keynote speaker and podcast host. Her views and work have been covered by BBC Sport, Sky Sports, BT Sport, Euronews, The Independent, The Times, Sports Illustrated, Reuters, Forbes, The Athletic, Rouleur, The Japan Times, Euractiv, Ecolospot, SportsPro, Sport Business Journal and more.
She is a contributor on sport and sustainability for Forbes, a Community Influencer on the World Economic Forum’s Earth Decides programme, a member of UEFA’s Environmental Steering Group, an Advisor to Ecoathletes, Advisory Board Member to The Sport Ecology Group, Special Member of albert Sports Consortium, ad advised Council for Responsible Sport for their Standard for Organisations. She was named in Sport Business Journal’s ‘Executives To Know In Sports Sustainability’ in 2022.
Recent speaking engagements include key addresses for Ministry of Environment Japan G20/G7 Workshop, Sports@YouTube, Australia National Sports Convention, Commonwealth Debate on Sport and Sustainable Development, Premier League Inspires, The Climate Reality Project and Nike EMEA.
Although when people think of Sport Positive, inevitably they think of Claire, she is ably supported by incredible colleagues Louisa, Nyla, Lynne, Claire, Lauren, Nancy and Jenny.
If you’re interested in learning more about what we do, or want to invite Claire to speak at an event, or do an interview or get involved in the Summit, the Leagues, the podcast, the newsletter, the easiest way is to either head to our ‘Contact Us’ page or email [email protected] and include your enquiry in the subject line.
