In this case from Sir Bob Geldof, lead singer of rock band Boomtown Rats - at the beginning of some weeks, we boomers still sign along on their hit "I don’t like Mondays" - as reported here last month.

In an interview with Australian media, Geldof questioned comments from the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games organisers about their claim of staging the "first ever climate positive Games" and talked about hypocrisy.

While Sir Bob might not be an expert on neither major events nor climate change, he for sure has a point - and major events rights holders and organisers should take note.

Any activity today, including major sporting events, will have to deal with sustainability questions and be able to present strategies on how to mitigate environmental impact. Such accountability is expected by both media and the wider public as the issues related to climate change can no longer be ignored. And major event organisers need to play their part.

However, by claiming - in the case of Brisbane - that a major sporting event can produce a net positive climate impact, the event organisers (and with them, the rights holders who tend to launch similar lofty ambitions) might be about to make the same mistake at they have done in the past many years in terms of overpromising on a so-called "lasting economic impact" from their events.

Even massive efforts of reducing carbon emissions, reducing waste and using recycled material cannot offset the negative environmental impact of staging Olympic Games in Brisbane with tens of thousands of athletes, officials, reporters and spectators flying halfway around the world to get there and using strained resources.

And even if the organisers move to the - too often used? - trick of promising to plant thousands of trees to compensate, from a purely climate impact point of view it would be much better just to plant these trees (and not organise the event).

So, does this mean that major sports events should ideally be cancelled altogether?

No, they should not because they can in fact have both economic and environmental positive effects.

However, event organisers and rights holders need to rethink both the focus of these effects and how to explain these to a wider audience.

This starts with being more realistic and not being tempted to overpromise in order to build short term-support. Credibility is of utmost importance in an era overshadowed by ubiquitous green claims.

Just like a major event does not - in a limited time - generate a massive economic benefit for a host city, an event will never be a net positive for the environment. 

Studies keep highlighting that climate offsetting measures are no panacea - they often lack transparency and tend to overstate emission reductions.

Whether for economic or environmental impact, focusing solely on the immediate effect throughout the event is not the right strategy.

These metrics are missing the point and will always remain disputable, with fears that the estimated numbers are somehow inflated.

Rather, the new focus should be to reframe how leveraging sport events can stimulate long-term economic and environmental effects.

Compared to short-term, more symbolic actions, taking advantage of major events as catalysts to enhance a city’s established activities can have significant and long-lasting benefits.

Through this leveraging effect, organisers and cities can use the resources, attention and investments devoted to sport events to uplift existing processes, undertake new actions and create meaningful partnerships which are fundamental to foster progress in communities or regions in which, without the impulse of major events, it would take years to achieve otherwise.

A wide array of options is available to achieve such goals, including leveraging sport events to create business opportunities, stimulate local economic development, inspire positive ecological change at a local level and promote better climate resiliency.

The true challenge lies in measuring long-term positive change and thus convincingly promoting such effects to the wider public, of course, without overstating the expected outcomes and being accused of greenwashing or hypocrisy.

It is essential for cities and event organisers to clarify how they communicate around major events when it comes to environmental impact – and explain more convincingly how the host city, region or country can benefit.

And there is no way around it.

In the past many years, event organisers overplayed and promised the wrong things in terms of economic impact. They should avoid repeating this mistake now when dealing with top-of-agenda environmental questions.

As the recent cancellations of the Commonwealth Games 2026 by the Victorian provincial Government showed, scrutiny is rising when it comes to hosting major events.

The sports industry needs a more sustainable path forward to promote the environmental effect of major events - a good start would be to listen to Sir Bob.