The answer: They're both committed to reducing their carbon footprint.

In the past week, I've read about professional tennis stars, F1 organisers and Saffery Champness partners all reviewing their carbon emissions and considering what can be done to reduce the impact of global warming.

This is a topic very close to my heart and something I am always thinking about in my work and personal life, so it's worth shouting about when the people leading our firm are committed to the cause as well:

Saffery Partners attend 'Sustainability in Practice' event

It's well recognised that professional athletes across all sports have to travel around the world to perform at international competitions and that the emissions from all the associated flights has a damaging impact on the global warming crisis. 

More and more of these athletes are now addressing this problem and opting to offset their emissions by purchasing 'carbon credits', but even more important is talking about the problem publicly and reviewing their lifestyles to see if there is anything that they can change to reduce their emissions in the first place.

It's great to hear top tennis players like Andrey Rublev and Cam Norrie bringing this to light and looking at ways to reduce their emissions by travelling by air less, cycling around locally or using electric powered modes of transport.

Electric cars are a great way to reduce emissions and for any athlete performing in the UK, an added bonus could be a reduction in their tax bill as incentives are still in place for these vehicles.

Speaking of electric cars, the Extreme E electric off-road racing series has taken it a step further and the whole sport travels around the world by boat on its very impressive former Royal Mail cargo-passenger vessel the St. Helena.

I think we're a little way away from shipping all of our elite athletes around the world on cargo vessels but it's certainly a hot topic in sport and more and more of these professionals are conscious of the impact of their sport.

F1 is notoriously known for high emissions of not only the sport itself but the crazy travel schedule that sees teams travel up to 130,000km per year across only 20 odd races. The sport has just announced its calendar for 2024 and "has made clear its intention to move towards greater calendar regionalisation, reducing logistical burdens and making the season more sustainable". It's still far from a perfect calendar but at least a step in the right direction in a time when many of the drivers and stakeholders are calling out for better solutions.

Partners and staff at Saffery Champness are always looking for ways to help the ongoing crisis and last year I joined a tree planting initiative organised by one of our Olympic champion clients. We hope to organise our own event later this year as well as continuing to take part in other events such as litter picks, carbon offsetting through online apps and sponsored challenges for charity.