In the second of our Climate Series 2023 podcast episodes, we were joined by David Gent, Chief Executive of Active Humber.
David is one of the driving forces behind the sport and physical activity sector playing its role in addressing the climate emergency, sitting on national groups with many large sporting organisations.
David shares with us why he has a personal passion for the climate and what prompted him to make it a significant part of his working life.
“It’s been one of those things that’s going to happen sometime in the future or it’s something that’s happening in some South Pacific island or something like that,” David told us on The YSF Podcast.
“I think it really brought it home to me when I took the job at Active Humber, that 85% of all of the houses and businesses in Hull are already below the high watermark. So if the water is going to rise, all’s going under because it’s already potentially under it.
“Then another thing that really came home to me was this whole idea about where the emissions are that the industries that we have in and around Humber because of it being a port. The Humber alone produces 37% of all of the UK’s carbon emissions. And then we wonder why in the Humber that people’s breathing and there’s so many health problems.
“And it was this sort of awareness moment of all of these factors which individually you didn’t really notice but when you started to put them together that’s perhaps actually why it’s causing people not to be physically active.”
Find out more about Active Humber’s climate commitment on their website.