The Humber is the second most physically inactive place in England where 44% of the population is physically inactive and that is damaging our health and our economy. And all you need to do to be physically active is this – walk.
It is also interesting that when you look at the most inactive places in England, they are also the places producing the most carbon emissions.
And what delighted me when looking at the Climate Action Plan & Our Carbon Story was how nearly in every picture or graphic there is someone being physically active so being physically active is got to be important to an environmentally sustainable Yorkshire & Humber – right!
And I nearly fell off my chair when I read this stat in the Our Carbon Story:
'The measures we need to implement net zero also provide substantial co-benefits for people, the environment and the economy. By 2050, we could save around £250 billion by realising the co-benefits assessed, with approximately half of those savings coming from increased physical activity.'
To use a football vernacular – Get In!
Sport and physical activity are uniquely placed to address this challenge because we are embedded in pretty much every community in the region as you would want to define ‘community’ and as a sector, we are very emotionally connected to what happens in those communities on a day-to-day basis in all their successes and failures as a community. I think we have important role in sport to play in the challenge we all face.
All of us here today know that those facing the greatest inequalities are those most affected by climate change. We know in sport that those facing the greatest inequalities have the least access by far to open green and blues spaces and those spaces where they exist for activity are also the most prone to the effects of climate change.
We all need a safe and inclusive places to play.
Did you know that Yorkshire has more cricket clubs than the whole of Australia... (and yet we can’t win the County Cricket Championship). Where are most of those cricket grounds? – IN THE FLOOD PLAIN.
My good news is that Sport England, as part of their national commitment to tackling climate change and improve environmental sustainability, are to fund a project with the Commission to work out how best sport and physical activity can play its part in making Yorkshire and Humber a much more equal and sustainable place.
So, all those pretty pictures of people being physically active in these documents become the reality here in the region and we are no longer seen as the ‘Yorkshire puddings’ of physical activity in England and much more positively seen as those taking active steps (at least 10,000 steps a day) for a more equal future for all."
