I’ve spent a lot of my life watching football. Maybe too much – I suspect definitely too much if you were to ask members of my immediate family.

I’ve spent who knows how many hours on the terraces, in the grandstand, and for a spell of more than 16 years, in the press box. That’s not including the (countless) games I have seen on TV or listened to on the radio in the car or the kitchen.

Over those 40-plus years, I can count the number of times I have had or overheard a discussion about sustainability during a match on the fingers of a man with no hands.

That might seem obvious. After all, people go to football to watch football, not discuss the effects of the climate crisis on the indigenous population of polar bears in Svalbard.

And yet… those same supporters talk about families (their own and those of mutual friends, or distant relatives), they can get distracted from the action by discussing cars, what they watched on TV last week, the state bin collections, past and present working arrangements. I recently spent far a greater amount of time than I would like discussing the merits of the Horrible Histories live show. I would argue none of these (maybe Uncle Albert’s heart condition aside) are as important as the state of the planet, and yet I have never heard the environment, biodiversity or any other of the subjects we cover on Transforming Tomorrow come up.

The closest I have come is when we praised the new rules meaning plastic bottle lids are attached to the bottle. But that had naught to do with recycling, and everything to do with our joy at no longer having to worry about spilling your unconsumed drink all over your trousers should that rare thing happen and you have to celebrate a Barrow goal (any Bluebirds fans listening will recognise it has not been much of an issue this season).

It was strange – in a good way – therefore, to spend an hour talking with Idlan Zakaria recently about nothing but football and sustainability. We even dragged Jan in – a person whose one recent brief flirtation with possibly going to a football match came because she quite fancied the off-chance of spotting Ryan Reynolds in the stands. Oh, how I hope Wrexham don’t get promoted again this season.

Anyway, while supporters on the terraces may prefer to question the mental capacity of the manager, or the ability of their number nine to hit a cow’s backside with a banjo from three yards, this was a chance to discuss the growing overlap between football and sustainability.

If fans are not yet totally engaged, clubs are starting to recognise the impact they have through travel and matchdays, and even the game’s governing body FIFA makes attempts to communicate positive sustainability strategies – no matter how believable they might be.

I am naturally sceptical of just about anything FIFA and other sporting governing bodies do. Call me an old cynic, but 40 years of seeing how the game is run does not give me great hope that sustainability will soon rise to the top of the list of priorities.

But while recent World Cups in Russia and Qatar, and future events in Saudi Arabia do nothing to make me think anything other than cold hard cash is king in the game of association football, Idlan did bring some positives to the table.

She talked to us about various initiatives by clubs and fans to be more sustainable in their actions – be it in their travel arrangements, or when it comes to their power and water usage, or the waste they produce on matchdays. We also covered the case of Forest Green Rovers, and how they have gone vegan for all players and staff – and supporters at their stadium on home matchdays – looked for as many ways as possible to reduce their impact on the planet, and how they could be a role model for other clubs looking to be more sustainable.

What we only discussed after the recording had finished was the risk of rising sea levels to so many clubs. Look at Everton, whose new ground is on the banks of the Mersey, at Morecambe and Blackpool locally to Lancaster, who stand near the Irish Sea, at Carlisle United, whose Brunton Park base stands close to the River Eden and is susceptible to flooding when heavy rain drenches the north of Cumbria – a place, as I am sure you are aware, that is not exactly renowned for long dry spells. These are the kind of issues fans will have little choice but to ruminate on if their club if forced to find a new home. That, or convert to water polo arenas.

Football is far from the only sport staring at a climate change reckoning.

As I write, the Winter Olympics are ongoing in Milan-Cortina, Northern Italy. There are few major international sporting events more at risk from climate change than this – though if sea levels rise and tidal waves crash to the extent featured in disaster movie 2012 or (spoiler alert) last year’s TV hit Paradise, then we’ll be left with nothing more than, at first, extreme surfing and kayaking, and, later, water polo.

Recent Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Sochi and Pyeongchang have relied on artificial snow to allow alpine events to go ahead. That was unheard of before Lake Placid in 1980, but warming climates – as well as some bizarre location choices in at least one instance – mean it is becoming harder to find venues where there will be natural snow on the ground come February.

Events such as ice hockey and skating have long since moved indoors to artificial ice, and only one bobsleigh/luge/skeleton run in the world continues to use natural ice rather than concrete and an artificial refrigeration system – yay for you, St Moritz! But you need snow of some kind for skiing, and if the slopes remain bare around the world as temperatures rise, then the logistical ease of finding venues in 20 years is far from easy. Hopefully, at least, ridiculous plans such as Saudi Arabia hosting the 2029 Asian Winter Games will not transfer to Olympic level. Even they have been postponed, however, though not due to the climate, more because the venue city doesn’t quite exist yet. Give it a few decades and it might be the only option.

If the Winter Olympics are not your thing, then perhaps the Super Bowl is, or more specifically, the half-time show. Anyone who tuned in to watch Bad Bunny during the interval of the Seattle Seahawks beating the New England Patriots (and yay to that result), will have heard the Puerta Rican performing El Apagón (The Blackout), a song about power shortages in his homeland. It was far from the most talked about moment of his show – Lady Gaga, conservatives blowing a gasket at having a Spanish language performer, etc – but it highlighted issues of climate change and green energy on a global platform.

That is the kind of message we need to hear more of on global sporting stages. Maybe then discussions about sustainability on the terraces will be that bit more common.

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