Open Letter To FIFA

For years, fans, schools, workplaces, airports, hotels, and stadiums have encouraged people to carry reusable water bottles as part of everyday life. Reuse has become normal, not because people were asked to make a sacrifice, but because organizations invested in systems that made sustainable choices easier and more accessible.

That is why FIFA’s reported decision to restrict the use of reusable bottles at World Cup matches has surprised many people working across sustainability, hospitality, and venue operations.

The world has spent the last decade encouraging people to reuse. The world’s biggest sporting events should help support that progress.

This conversation is about more than one policy or one tournament. It is about a much larger question: What role should global events play in shaping the future we want to create?

The world’s biggest sporting events are more than competitions. They are cultural moments. They influence behavior, shape expectations, and demonstrate what is possible at scale. When millions of fans gather in one place, those events become powerful platforms for normalizing sustainable habits.

Across North America and around the world, venues have invested heavily in refill stations, hydration infrastructure, and sustainability programs to reduce waste and improve the fan experience. At the same time, organizations everywhere have encouraged attendees, employees, students, and customers to embrace reusable products in their daily lives.

That progress matters.

It has taken years of investment, collaboration, and education to make reuse mainstream. Fans have already adopted the habit. Venues have already invested in the infrastructure.

When those systems are not fully utilized, important opportunities are lost. Fans lose the ability to continue behaviors they have already embraced. Venues lose opportunities to maximize investments they have made in sustainability infrastructure. And the broader movement toward waste reduction loses one of its most visible stages.

With an estimated 6.5 million attendees expected across 104 matches, the World Cup represents one of the largest opportunities for reuse ever assembled.

Consider the potential impact.

More than 6.5 million spectators are expected to attend the tournament. If each attendee chose to refill a reusable bottle just twice during their World Cup experience, the result could exceed 13 million acts of reuse and prevent an estimated 468,000 pounds of plastic waste.

Those numbers represent more than waste reduction. They represent millions of individual decisions to participate in a more sustainable future. They represent one of the largest opportunities in the world to normalize reuse behavior at scale.

Few events can influence habits at that level.

At a time when organizations around the world are working to reduce landfill waste, plastic pollution, and single-use consumption, these decisions help shape how millions of people think about what responsible event experiences should look like.

The world’s largest events should set the standard for sustainability, not step away from it.

Safety, fan experience, operational realities, and sustainability are all important priorities, and they do not have to compete with one another. The most successful events of the future will be those that thoughtfully achieve all four.

As one of the world’s most influential sporting organizations, FIFA has an extraordinary opportunity to help shape what sustainable event experiences can look like for future generations.

The opportunity now is not to move backward but to continue designing event experiences that safely and thoughtfully support reuse through refill infrastructure, clear policies, and fan-friendly hydration systems.

As someone who has spent the last two decades working to make reuse easier and more accessible, I remain optimistic. The momentum behind reuse is stronger than ever. Fans want it. Venues have invested in it. Organizations are increasingly committed to it.

The habits we normalize at the world’s biggest events help shape expectations far beyond sport.

The world has already embraced reuse.

The world’s biggest stages should help move that progress forward.

Sincerely,