ATP and Infosys have unlocked a new phase in tennis’ sustainability journey with the launch of Carbon Tracker, a first-of-its-kind app enabling players to track and mitigate travel emissions on Tour.
With hundreds of professional players travelling to more than 250 events in 50 countries across the ATP Tour and ATP Challenger Tour each season, travel represents a significant part of players’ overall carbon emissions. Addressing this impact has become the top sustainability priority under ATP Serves, in line with ATP’s commitment to UN Sports for Climate Action.
“This initiative means a lot for tennis because tennis is luckily one of the biggest [and] one of the most popular sports in the world. But in the same way, also probably one of the sports with the most traveling, with the most flown miles,” Dominic Thiem said. “So it’s super important for tennis to step up and take the first steps towards a better future.”
Developed in collaboration with Infosys, Digital Innovation partner of the ATP Tour, Carbon Tracker is a first-of-its kind app in professional sports. It enables players to track their travel to tournaments across the season, understand their emissions profile, make more conscious travel decisions, and mitigate their impact by purchasing verified carbon credits through Gold Standard, a leading sustainable development standard and climate action partner of the ATP.
The Carbon Tracker app’s long-term ambition is to inspire greener travel on Tour. It features a dashboard that presents players with a holistic view of their emissions across multiple seasons – enabling deeper understanding and analysis of travel choices. This is supplemented with resources and quizzes to educate players on sustainable practices and environmental advocacy.
Thiem, Cameron Norrie, Andrey Rublev and Emil Ruusuvuori have kicked off proceedings by pledging to track and mitigate 100 per cent of their tournament travel emissions in 2023.
Rublev said: “As a tennis player, I have to travel a lot, especially there are a lot of flights per year [over a] long distance, different continents. So the Carbon Tracker app is a perfect first step.”
There are more than 2,900 Gold Standard-certified projects in more than 100 countries around the world. Those projects include supporting the planting of biodiverse forests in Panama to improving cookstoves in Peru and Uganda.
Over time, the certified projects have produced more than $36 billion in value supporting climate action and sustainability progress.
“I’ve heard a lot of good stuff about Gold Standard,” Ruusuvuori said. “They have great projects all around the world, like India, Peru, Ethiopia. And I’m really looking forward to exploring all the possible ways to help.”
The Finnish star added: “Ninety per cent of tennis’ emissions come from traveling, so we know what the problem is. But even though the problem is big, and it’s going to take a lot to make a difference, we know that we can. So that’s why we started this thing.”
Thiem explained why he feels a responsibility as an athlete to not only support the cause, but motivate his colleagues to do the same.
“It’s super important that athletes, especially from a big global popular sport like tennis, speak up because they have a big fanbase,” Thiem said. “They can inspire a lot of people and in this way they can have quite a big part of helping to save the planet.”
Rublev expanded on why he feels the same way: “It’s important to use this platform in the right way to move in the same direction. If you can use your platform and you try to do something with climate and some people listen to you, and they also start to see this way, maybe their friends [will] also listen to them.
“There are many people who are doing good things and they don’t have a voice and they’re doing so many good things. And athletes, they have this power so, for them, it’s much easier to do those things. And that’s why they have to do it.”
[ATP APP]
Although travel is an unavoidable part of professional tennis, Norrie said he feels a responsibility to take action and show climate leadership.
“This is something close to my heart and it’s been incredible to see this movement gain momentum in tennis,” Norrie said. “Carbon Tracker is a great first step to onboard more players, mitigate our impact, and keep this important conversation top of mind. I’m excited to see where this leads.”
The Top 3 players on the in-app Carbon Tracker leaderboard at the end of the 2023 season will be eligible to win a $100,000 prize pool. This will be distributed in the form of donations to environmental sustainability charities of players’ choice.
Carbon Tracker will be accessible exclusively through PlayerZone, the existing player website and mobile app launched by Infosys and ATP in 2016.
ATP CEO Massimo Calvelli said: “Tennis is on a mission to Net Zero and like many sports, our travel footprint is our biggest challenge. ATP’s new Carbon Tracker makes it simple for players to join that journey, mitigating their impact today and inspiring greener choices tomorrow. This is a story of addressing difficult problems through innovation, and we would thank our partners Infosys for their collaboration and commitment to the project. The potential of this app is massive and we’re just getting started.”
Infosys Chief Marketing Officer Sumit Virmani said, “The synergy between Infosys and ATP has resulted in a very action-oriented innovation which sensitizes the need for energy transition in sports. In recent times, we have witnessed a multitude of digital sustainability platforms that are enabling organizations pave their way to net zero emissions. Together with ATP, we will strive to make tennis carbon conscious as a sport. As we drive towards a hyperconnected economy, it is imperative for us to focus on dynamically driving carbon consciousness in an innovative, sustainable, and efficient manner.”
Margaret Kim, Gold Standard CEO Margaret Kim said: “It is inspiring to see tennis leading the way towards a more sustainable sporting culture. Encouraging players to purchase Gold Standard-certified credits means they will be directly funding climate change projects that not only reduce carbon emissions, but also create many other sustainable development benefits for communities that need it most. We are excited to have ATP as a Gold Standard climate action supporter and look forward to collaborating further along the journey towards net zero.”