Introducing sport’s first free to use biodiversity tool
Sports organisations looking to better understand and manage their impact on nature were introduced to the new BENCHES biodiversity assessment tool during a recent webinar led by Alessio Novi of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies and Barbara Rettenbacher of the International Biathlon Union.
The session explored the development of the practical new tool, offering participants an insight into the thinking behind its design and the process of creating a resource tailored to the needs of the sports sector.
Speakers also shared how project partners tested the tool in real-world settings, highlighting early lessons, challenges and opportunities identified during the pilot phase.
The webinar concluded with a practical demonstration of how the assessment works, giving participants a clear understanding of how they can use the tool to assess their own organisation’s relationship with biodiversity and identify areas for improvement.
Deliverables, Research
Sport, biodiversity and the knowledge gap: Insights from the latest BENCHES webinar
How well do sports organisations understand their relationship with biodiversity? And more importantly, how can awareness be translated into practical action? These were the central questions explored in the latest BENCHES project webinar on “Biodiversity, knowledge and awareness in sport.”
Moderated by Matthew Campelli of Touchline, the session brought together two perspectives: academic research from Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, presented by Giulia Alessandri, and practical implementation from Italian Canoe Kayak Federation, presented by Anna Merlini.
Understanding biodiversity in sport
Alessandri opened the webinar by presenting the results of a global survey conducted as part of the BENCHES project. The research sought to measure the current level of biodiversity awareness among sports organisations, examining how managers understand environmental issues and how these translate into operational practices.
The survey collected responses from 173 sports managers across five continents, representing a range of organisations from small clubs to international event organisers. The findings reveal a sector that is increasingly conscious of environmental responsibility – but still at an early stage when it comes to biodiversity.
Many organisations reported promoting environmentally responsible behaviour among staff, athletes and stakeholders. However, biodiversity often remains only superficially integrated into sustainability strategies. Actions tend to focus primarily on climate change mitigation and resource efficiency, such as reducing water or energy use, while issues like ecosystem protection, land-use change or invasive species receive less attention.
Key barriers also emerged. Managers cited financial constraints, limited staff dedicated to biodiversity management and difficulties assessing the ecological impact of sporting activities. At the same time, drivers for action include collaboration with federations, event organisers and local authorities.
Overall, the results suggest that while general environmental awareness is relatively strong, biodiversity remains a more complex and less understood area for many organisations.
From awareness to action
Merlini then presented the perspective of a national federation working to embed biodiversity into its governance and events. For sports like canoeing and kayaking, which take place directly in natural environments, ecological considerations are unavoidable.
Recent environmental assessments of international kayak events in Milan showed strong performance in areas such as waste management, mobility and food systems, but biodiversity remained the weakest dimension.
To address this gap, the federation is developing a practical nature-based initiative as part of the BENCHES project: a network of “BENCHES Points” across Italy. These are simple, geo-located butterfly flower beds created by local clubs and schools to support pollinators such as bees and butterflies. The initiative will combine ecological restoration with education, engaging thousands of students and athletes in biodiversity awareness.
The approach reflects a broader message from the webinar: sometimes small, locally adapted actions can have meaningful ecological and cultural impact.
Dozens of people from across the sports industry and sustainability gathered in Lisbon for the Biodiversity in Sport Summit at SL Benfica’s Estadio da Luz in October 2025.
Organised by the BENCHES project – a European Union-funded initiative aiming to improve sports organisations’ understanding of, and impact on, biodiversity – the summit brought together speakers from across the project partners alongside external experts in biodiversity and sport.
The conference opened with a presentation from BENCHES project leader Tiberio Daddi of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, who outlined the project’s objectives and early findings at its halfway point. The project runs from 2024 to 2027.
Daddi reflected on site visits conducted with each sports partner – SL Benfica, World Athletics, the International Biathlon Union, World Sailing and the Italian Canoe Kayak Federation – as well as key deliverables covering supply chains, biodiversity pressures from sport and practical frameworks organisations can adopt.
He also previewed the development of a free biodiversity management tool for sports organisations, currently being created by the BENCHES project.
As summit host, SL Benfica presented its first sustainability report. Henrique Conceição, head of sustainability, and Pedro Félix, chief infrastructures & cultural heritage officer, outlined the club’s progress to date and its future plans for environmental management.
Ecosystem services in sport were the focus of the first panel, featuring project partners Bob Ramsak (World Athletics), Anna Merlini (Italian Canoe Kayak Federation) and Alessio Novi (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies), alongside Ana Agostinho, sustainability lead at E1 team Westbrook Racing. Panellists highlighted the importance of healthy natural environments to the success of sporting events and the actions they are taking to protect them.
A second panel examined biodiversity risks within sports supply chains, with contributions from Barbara Rettenbacher (International Biathlon Union), Rebecca Videlo (World Sailing) and Nuno Gomes (Vilamoura Youth Sailing World Championships). While acknowledging that supply chains are not fully within their control, the panellists agreed that clear expectations and safeguards are increasingly being put in place to ensure suppliers protect nature.
Deliverables
BENCHES starts to explore the value of nature and ecosystem services to sport
What is the value of nature to athletes? Not in poetic or philosophical terms, but in real, economic ones.
That’s the question at the heart of this BENCHES ‘Deliverable 2.5: Measurement of ecosystem service values in sports’, which explores how athletes perceive and value the ecosystems they train and compete in.
It’s the first time the ecosystem services framework – commonly used to estimate the value of forests, rivers or wetlands in conservation or policy contexts – has been applied so directly to the sporting world. Rather than focusing on the ecological impact of sport, this work flips the perspective, asking instead: what do natural spaces give to sport?
Willingness to pay
The study focused on two outdoor sports – canoeing/kayaking and mountain running – and sought to capture the cultural value of the natural venues where these activities take place. Using a well-established economic method known as “stated preference”, the BENCHES technical partners, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, surveyed athletes to estimate their willingness to pay to protect the ecosystems that support their sporting practice. The results represent a step forward in quantifying the intangible: the emotional, recreational and spiritual benefits athletes gain from nature, expressed in monetary terms.
The BENCHES team also hosted a webinar (see below), featuring lead researcher, Giulia Alessandri, and World Sailing director of sustainability, Alexandra Rickham, to unpack the findings.
The decision to focus on two disciplines was deliberate. Canoe/kayak competitions provided a lens into freshwater ecosystems, while mountain running represented terrestrial, high-altitude environments.
The goal was to test the approach in two contrasting biomes. Importantly, the focus was not a single event, but the broader “natural venue” used for both training and competition – a choice that avoided limiting the assessment to one-off conditions and instead captured how athletes engage with ecosystems over time.
The methodology centred on a tailored survey, distributed at real events in 2024. Athletes were asked how often they train, how emotionally connected they feel to their natural environments, whether they had received guidance on environmental protection from their sport organisations, and how much they would be willing to pay annually to preserve the ecological integrity of these spaces. The economic values proposed were realistic and specific, refined through a pre-survey and offered as fixed options to encourage thoughtful responses.
In total, 192 athletes responded – 154 from canoeing/kayaking and 38 from mountain running. After filtering incomplete responses and controlling for protest responses (where participants rejected the idea of putting a price on nature rather than expressing an inability to pay), the research calculated an average willingness to pay of €160.37 for canoeists and kayakers, and €110.58 for mountain runners.
These figures were then scaled to reflect the average number of participants at events in each sport and projected over a 20-year period (the estimated average span of an athlete’s engagement with a sport) using a standard 3.5% discount rate. The final result: an actualised ecosystem value of €721,266 for freshwater venues and €628,690 for mountainous ones.
These numbers are useful not as market prices, but as indicators of perceived value. They show that many athletes feel a strong personal connection to the environments they use, and that this connection translates into a concrete sense of worth.
Emotional bond
The results suggest that emotional bonds with nature are at least as important as financial means or professional level in shaping willingness to pay. Amateur athletes were just as likely, and in some cases more likely, to express a high willingness to pay than their professional peers, perhaps because of a stronger association between nature and recreation. Women, younger athletes and those with higher levels of education were also more inclined to support environmental contributions.
Awareness appears to play a significant role. Athletes who had received environmental guidance from their federations or event organisers were more likely to value nature and be willing to contribute to its protection. Yet a large proportion of respondents did not recall receiving any such information – and many believed their sport had no impact on flora or fauna, despite evidence to the contrary.
This highlights the potential for targeted communication to bridge the gap between intention and understanding. If athletes recognise the pressures their activities place on biodiversity, their already strong emotional connections could be translated into stronger support for conservation efforts.
The study is not without limitations. The sample sizes, particularly for mountain running, were small, and the athletes surveyed were all based in Italy, where both events took place. The economic values are therefore not representative of entire disciplines or geographies. Still, the methodology is replicable and adaptable. It could easily be extended to other sports, countries and ecosystems, or used over time to track shifts in perception and value.
What matters is not the absolute figure, but the signal it sends: nature matters to athletes, and they are willing to invest in it.
