Wallabies flanker David Pocock, along with Rugby World Cup teammates Bernard Foley and Dane Haylett-Petty, have announced their partnership with a scheme that aims to compensate for the carbon emissions associated with travel.
Earlier this year, musician Heidi Lenffer, from Australian band Cloud Control, launched FEAT. (Future Energy Artists), an initiative that would allow Australian musicians to invest in a solar farm in south-east Queensland.
Lenffer was concerned about the carbon emissions generated by her group’s touring schedule and what she saw as her own contribution to the climate emergency. Now, FEAT. is opening up to other sectors and individuals.
When FEAT. was announced, Pocock responded via Instagram – “he was putting enthusiastic emoji responses on a lot of our posts,” Lenffer says – and contacted another songwriter, Jack River, who put the two of them in touch.
“As an athlete, you’re in a somewhat similar position to artists in that there’s no escaping what you do requires travel, and I’m very conscious of my personal contribution,” says Pocock, who will captain the Wallabies in their final World Cup pool game against Georgia in Japan on Friday.
“To see what FEAT. was doing, and to see people like Heidi getting on with it and trying to harness that energy into actually building the future we know is coming and we all want to see, but need to speed up, that was really exciting.”
Lenffer says that while FEAT. started and would always be identified with the musical community, she was keen for the scheme to expand and be inclusive. “We see allies in other industries as being critical to the success of what we’re trying to do,” she says.
Money invested in FEAT. is being used to buy ownership stakes in a solar farm called Brigalow, near the town of Pittsworth on the Darling Downs. The floor price for investment is low, just $5. The farm will power the equivalent of over 11,000 homes for 30 years.
Pocock presented the scheme to his teammates, trying to impress upon them the carbon footprint of a major sporting tour. “It’s like any slice of the population. There are some guys who were interested in it, others didn’t really see it as an issue,” he says.
“I just presented the guys with what FEAT. was doing, giving them an idea of the Wallabies’ emissions this year and suggesting we team with them as a way of investing an equivalent amount into renewable energy.”
He convinced Foley and Haylett-Perry to come on board. “They’re excited about seeing solutions to these problems that we’re facing … It’s ridiculous to think that changing lightbulbs and that sort of thing is enough. Those days are over. We need a big system change.”
Pocock has been a vocal campaigner about the climate emergency, and has extended that to direct action: in 2014, he was arrested in a protest against Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek mine in northern New South Wales.
He extended his support to the wave of school strikes started by Greta Thunberg. “If you look at social change, it very seldom just happens. It ends up taking a percentage of the population actually willing to give up their freedoms and engage in civil disobedience,” he says.
He also highlighted how global heating was already impacting on world sport, with a sharp message for rugby’s governing bodies. “I’m not playing rugby in Australia next year, but round one of Super Rugby is in January next year,” he says.
“Can you imagine, in the last weekend of January, playing 80 minutes of rugby? That’s the way that change is going to happen in sport, when a few players get together – and our players’ unions – and say, hang on, this is an issue that’s going to affect our sport.”
Asked what he would say to those who tell him to “stick to sport” – and many have – Pocock says, “first and foremost, we’re all humans, and this is a much bigger issue than sport … It’s an existential threat. Rugby is a big part of my life and I’m doing absolutely everything I can to be playing at my best to be contributing to the Wallabies working towards us winning the World Cup and taking it back to Australia, that’s what we’re all working for.
“But I really believe that sport is at its best when it’s challenging society to be more inclusive, to be more forward thinking, and hopefully this is an area where sport can play more of a role, because we certainly aren’t getting the leadership from our politicians.
“When young people who are too young to vote tell us their futures are on the line, you’ve got to listen to them. They’re not making it up, they’re listening to the best of the available scientific projections. Ignoring the issue doesn’t make it go away, unfortunately.”
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