Desert Vipers: Pioneers for Sustainability in Cricket
By Chris Britt-Searle
Desert Vipers are a rather unusual cricket team. How many other cricket clubs can you name that have placed sustainability, climate and nature at the very heart of their identity? And with top players, such as Lockie Ferguson, Shimron Hetmyer, Sam Curran and Naseem Shah on the roster, the Vipers are taking the sustainability message to a huge global audience.
It’s easy to forget that the team, and the ILT20 league in which they play, have only been around since 2023. Yet in that short time, the league has grown to be the second most watched T20 league in the world, with an estimated viewership of around 350 million. As for the Vipers - since season one, they’ve already reduced their carbon footprint by an impressive 19.5%, reduced plastic use by 35% and educated thousands of school children on cricket and sustainability.
“If only a small percentage of those people go away and make more sustainable choices - that’s making a big difference.”
Ben Hardy-Jones, Business Sustainability Lead for the Desert Vipers
Vipers celebrating their thrilling super over win in their green snakeskin kit
Sport for Nature
Inextricably linked with the climate crisis, is the nature crisis. Our systems of living are placing ever more pressure on the natural world, stretching it to its limits.
Having been one of the first cricket teams in the world to sign up to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework, the Vipers are now also the first to join the IUCN Sports for Nature Framework - a global initiative to use sport to ‘champion nature and contribute to its protection and restoration’.
Nature protection will be a big focus this season, with the Vipers making use of their platform to highlight the issue. In previous seasons, the team have donned their green kits for a one-off sustainability match, but this year they are going fully green for the entire season, sporting a new green ‘snakeskin’ kit in affinity with the amazing creatures whose name they bear. Plus - they will again be hosting their annual sustainability match, with plans for an extra-special kit to shine the spotlight on biodiversity loss.
One of their initiatives last season was to undertake a citizen-science ‘bioblitz’ around the grounds of the team hotel - JA The Resort in Dubai. With the help of pupils from the nearby Jebel Ali School, they recorded an impressive 97 different species of plant and animal life. This year, they’ve expanded the bioblitz, alongside their education programme, to take place in both the UAE and India.
Tackling plastic pollution
Another big focus for the Vipers this season is the sticky issue of plastic. Sport has a huge problem with kit waste. It’s estimated that globally an astonishing 600,000 tonnes of sports kit is sent to landfill annually. In the UK alone, that adds up to around 951 sports shirts every minute.
This is an astronomical problem for one sports team to tackle on its own, but the Vipers are doing their bit. They have massively reduced their use of virgin and single-use plastic and instigated various recycling schemes, including for kit. They are the first top-tier cricket team to play in fully recycled kit - made by local producer, Palmfit, which is designed to be more durable and longer lasting. They have also eliminated thousands of single-use plastic bottles by introducing refill units and providing the team with their own refillable bottles.
Offsetting Carbon
The next big piece in the puzzle is offsetting the residual emissions that the club have been unable to eliminate. With the travel, energy and sheer amount of resources used, sport is always going to have something of an impact, so offsetting the resulting carbon footprint is a vital step. This year, Desert Vipers have partnered with (friends of The Next Test) Vuelta Carbon to offset the entire season’s carbon footprint - supporting projects across the UAE, India, and Saudi Arabia.
Changing the conversation
The Desert Vipers are one of the most prominent clubs changing the conversation on what sustainability in cricket could look like. You can find out more on the dedicated sustainability section of their website, where you can find all of their impact reports and related news stories.
The Desert Vipers take on the Dubai Capitals in their Sustainability Match on Sunday December 14th, starting at 14:30 GMT. Available in the UK on Sky Sports
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