How can we ensure communities are more active whilst minimising carbon emissions?

The following question was posed at our recent Rise team away day:  

“Who emits the most carbon – people living sedentary lifestyles or people living active lifestyles?” 

The room was pretty evenly split. After all, if you’re sedentary, then you’re more likely to be indoors with the heating on, using power to watch TV or play video games and use a car to run your errands, right? But what about all that car use to get to the gym, visit that lovely country park for a walk or get to that football game? Perhaps the assumption that a sedentary lifestyle is a high carbon emission lifestyle is a myth…? 

Research published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine suggests that globally, less physically active regions such as Europe are emitting more carbon dioxide than more physically active regions such as Africa.  Looking at that more locally, knowing what we know about how low physical activity levels and high deprivation levels correlate, then the data suggests that people living in the least affluent lower super output areas (LSOAs) are less active and are producing less carbon than those living in the most affluent LSOAs. Living a healthy, active lifestyle often comes with (or is even facilitated by) high carbon emitting activities. 

So, this Earth Day, how do we square the circle of ensuring that we continue to work to ensure communities are more physically active, whilst ensuring that we continue to work to drive down carbon emissions?! These are both fundamental aspects of our Rise Together 2021-2031 strategy, and don’t have any easy fixes. 

We need to create a system which allows as many people as possible (regardless of income) to be active in a way which is green and sustainable.  There is much to discuss and debate within this, but the first thing that jumped out to most of us in the room at the away day was that a lot of this relates to how we might travel to and from physical activity opportunities. There has been much focus on how nationally, regionally and locally, the ability and motivation to actively travel (walk, cycle, push (wheelchair), scoot etc.) can be better supported. Recent changes in The Highway Code to priortise the safety of people walking and cycling were met with derision from some quarters, with 54% of those surveyed by the road safety charity ‘IAM Roadsmart’ suggesting that such rules changes will in fact cause more conflict between motorists and pedestrians/cyclists. In terms of physical infrastructure changes, the introduction of Low Traffic Neighborhoods in parts of London have sparked significant contentious debate and even a number of High Court and Court of Appeal challenges.  

We must collectively find solutions that can ensure active travel becomes safer, easier and more appealing, or else we will struggle to both reduce the 27% of the UK’s total carbon emissions that come from transport (2019 figures), and simultaneously decrease the 24-27% of adults (2020-2021 figures) in Northumberland and Tyne & Wear who are physically inactive, i.e. are moving for less than 30 minutes per week, both of which pose significant risks to our collective long-term health and wellbeing.