S4, E2: FIFA2026 on Fire

Aileen McManamon, Dr. Walker Ross, Dr. Tim Walters, and Dr. Maddy Orr discuss some of the challenges facing FIFA2026: extreme heat, wildfire, and a trade war in North America. This conversation was originally recorded on April 15, 2025 as part of the Earth Month sessions.

What will the new IOC president do for sustainability in the Olympic Movement and beyond? In this first episode of season 4, we bring you a conversation from our Earth Month sessions in April 2025 between our host Maddy Orr, and guests Dr. Jules Boykoff and Hannah Campbell-Pegg OLY.

Hilary Meyer, Dr. Ann Pegoraro, and Dr. Maddy Orr discuss the growth of women's sport in recent years, and come up with ideas for balancing gender parity and environmental goals. Is it possible to grow women's sport AND be 'sustainable'? Find out.

Dr. Thomas Carter is a Reader in the School of Sport and Service Management at the University of Brighton and the Executive Director of Football for Peace. Dr. Carter is a sport anthropologist and specialist in sport migration, and joins the podcast to discuss his career, the unique opportunities that lie in sport-for-development work, and the added pressures that climate change will add to migration systems.

Stephania Ergemlidze started a one-woman movement in the summer of 2020 when she took her basketball hoop to protest sites around the U.S. to facilitate positive interactions between groups. She joins the podcast to discuss her personal trajectory, the role of sports in strengthening communities and addressing inequities.

In this last 4-episode segment of The Listening Sessions, we get into the solutions. How to fix environmental and social issues in sport? The fourth answer comes from COFFEY, a NYC-based filmmaker, runner, and community organizer who uses running as his platform for protest and community-building. He sheds light on the possibility and potential that lies in using our favorite sports or activities as sites for resistance and healing.

In this last 4-episode segment of The Listening Sessions, we get into the solutions. How to fix environmental and social issues in sport? The third answer is brought forth by Charles T. Brown, a researcher and adjunct professor at Rutgers University, who highlights the inequities in the ways our communities, streets, and public spaces are designed and proposes that prioritizing those people closest to pain (especially Black, Brown, and low income communities) and inviting them to join decision-makers at the table is central to finding solutions.

In this last 4-episode segment of The Listening Sessions, we get into the solutions. How to fix environmental and social issues in sport? The second answer comes from Aileen McManamon, Kristen Fulmer, and Monica Rowand, who together with Dr. Maddy Orr form the Sport Sustainability Research Collective. These sustainability specialists highlight the enormous potential that lies in partnerships and collaboration for addressing major challenges in sport.

In this last 4-episode segment of The Listening Sessions, we get into the solutions. How to fix environmental and social issues in sport? The first answer comes from Drs. Ann Pegoraro and Lindsey Darvin, experts on gender issues in sport, who highlight the potential and benefits of putting women and POC into positions of power.

In episodes 9-12 of The Listening Sessions, Dr. Maddy Orr addresses the inequities and unique experiences of Indigenous athletes and people working in the Indigenous sport system. Dr. Tricia McGuire-Adams joins the show to talk about decolonization through sport and especially her work with Anishinaabe women.