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As climate change continues its impacts the world over, a high school athlete in the U.S. is taking the lead on promoting eco-friendly practices in youth sports. Rishin Tandon, 2025 grant recipient of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program, recently launched the Youth Eco Sports Scorecard (YESS), a first-of-its-kind online tool to help youth sports teams measure, understand and improve their environmental impact.
Funded through a micro-grant from The Allstate Foundation, YESS is part of a national effort by the Aspen Institute to support youth who are using sport to solve real-world problems. Inspired by Aspen’s School Sports Equity Toolkit, Service Learning Through Sports is a one-year program that provides micro-grants and mentorship programming to select U.S. high school students who lead, or aim to lead, a project or initiative that improves the youth sports experience and/or increases opportunities for sport and play.
For Tandon, a multi-sport athlete at Issaquah High School in Washington with a passion for the environment, the issue was clear: youth sports were unintentionally contributing to climate change. “From piles of plastic water bottles to gas-guzzling travel and fields that bake in extreme heat, it became clear to me that sports weren’t just affected by climate change, but also contributing to it,” he shared.
While interning with Global Sustainable Sport, he developed the platform after conducting research into sustainability efforts of major sporting events and professional teams. During the process he discovered a significant gap: while professional leagues had started embracing green policies, there was no equivalent system on a youth level, despite more than 70 million children participating in organized sports in the U.S. alone.
The YESS tool provides sports teams with a survey that scores them on factors like transportation habits, waste management, energy use and field maintenance in minutes. The platform then offers simple, actionable strategies – from carpooling to installing LED lights – to help reduce their carbon footprint. The website notes that YESS doesn’t just measure change, it inspires it. Teams receive benchmarks and suggestions aligned with best practices in sustainability, helping them make responsible choices without sacrificing performance or fun.
The need for action is urgent:
- Transportation is the largest source of emissions in youth sports, with families often driving long distances for games.
- Heat-related illness is now a leading cause of death in youth athletics, exacerbated by record-breaking global temperatures.
- Plastic waste, especially from single-use bottles and wrappers, overwhelms landfills and oceans.
- Outdated sports facilities often rely on high-energy lighting, adding to carbon emissions and operational costs.
“Small changes at the youth level could add up to massive impact,” said Tandon. “YESS aims to drive awareness and action by providing youth sports teams with a clear, data-driven understanding of their environmental impact. By equipping players, coaches and communities with education, measurement and actionable guidance, we aim to reduce the carbon footprint of youth sports while fostering a generation of eco-champions.”
The Climate Leaders Fellowship at the Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab and the King County Play Equity Coalition also support Tandon’s work, helping him grow YESS into a movement. The initiative fosters leadership among young athletes and positions youth sports as a powerful ally in the global fight against climate change. In the effort to “build the next generation of climate-conscious athletes,” he is also encouraging students who want to help grow and scale YESS to reach out to him.
With this tool, Tandon plans to place the power to make a difference directly in the hands of players, coaches and families. “At the end of the day, YESS is about making sustainability second nature in youth sports. By bringing together athletes, coaches and communities, we can turn small changes into something bigger and show that sports can be a force for good in the fight against climate change.”
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