Kevin Wekesa founded Play Green, an organization that connects sports with climate action.
The Kenyan rugby sevens star has been recognized for his advocacy and grassroots efforts to tackle the carbon footprint of sports.
“Most well-known figures discussing climate change are based in North America and Europe,” said Kevin Wekesa, a Kenyan rugby sevens player. “But for us, this conversation is crucial. It’s not just about future tournaments or big international pledges. In Kenya, we witness the effects firsthand—rising heat, cracked pitches, and shifting weather patterns in communities where young athletes are growing up.”
A year before competing in his first Olympic Games at Paris 2024, Wekesa responded to Kenya’s relegation from the top tier of international sevens by offering free rugby coaching in schools across Kenya. After traveling to a school in Kirinyaga on the slopes of Mount Kenya—a usually wet and lush region—Wekesa found a dry, unplayable field and was forced to cancel the session. One student told him conditions had been similar for two months, and another suggested the unusual weather was due to climate change.
“I thought to myself, if it’s already affecting this level of sport, what about the highest level?” That same year, he founded Play Green, an organization linking sports with climate action. Wekesa went on to win a 2025 IOC Climate Action Award, recognizing his success with Play Green, including leading the Kenyan men’s and women’s national sevens teams to use reusable water bottles, saving approximately 1,000 plastic bottles each week.
Wekesa aims to extend his influence beyond Kenya’s national setup and make banning single-use plastic a policy in Kenyan rugby clubs and tournaments. “If I can eliminate plastic directly from all clubs in Kenya, it can eventually grow organically to other sports in the country,” he said. In April, Wekesa met Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, to discuss reducing single-use plastic at the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon), which Kenya will host alongside Uganda and Tanzania.
Play Green also focuses on climate change education in Kenyan schools. “We work with children because they are inheriting the climate crisis, not because they are causing it,” Wekesa said. “Kenyan children have a very small carbon footprint compared to those growing up in high-carbon economies like northern Europe, yet they are often more exposed to the consequences: drought, floods, heat, water shortages, food insecurity, illness, and missed school. I am not blaming European children, but I must highlight climate injustices.”
Kevin Wekesa playing for Kenya against Samoa at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Play Green does not treat children solely as victims of climate change but as active participants in protecting their environment. “For me, climate action is practical, visible, and rooted in community, just like rugby. It takes a community to tackle climate action; it’s not about pointing fingers,” Wekesa explained. Many children in vulnerable communities are aware of climate change, but education empowers them to take small actions that reduce its impacts, such as conserving water.
After giving climate change talks and playing rugby with students, Wekesa tasks them with adopting trees planted by Play Green, writing their names on a label along with the year the sapling was planted. When Wekesa realized children were sometimes too hungry to play rugby after school, Play Green primarily plants fruit trees—avocado, mango, guava, and other indigenous species—to provide nourishment. He is also piloting a scheme that provides children with wholegrain porridge.
The trees planted in each school depend on the local climate, which Wekesa learned about after visiting the Kenya Forest Reserve. He acknowledges there are more effective ways to reduce carbon emissions than planting trees, but he notes that besides providing nutrition, the trees give students “a sense of belonging” to their surroundings while offering shade that can serve as outdoor classrooms. “I remember many times having a literature lesson under a tree when it was too hot to be in a classroom,” he recalled.
Throughout May, Wekesa is teaching rugby, distributing pre-used rugby balls, and planting fruit trees in 10 schools that have expressed interest in joining Play Green. So far, he has held workshops in over 40 Kenyan schools and planted over 6,200 trees. Some students who participated in the first workshops have even introduced Play Green initiatives to new schools as they progress through their education.
Wekesa, still only 25 and recently finishing his mechanical engineering degree, acknowledges that traveling to play rugby has its own carbon footprint and tries to minimize it where possible. However, he says that other people’s pledges—such as using sustainable transport to attend sports events—motivate him to do more, because they show that people engage with climate change through sport. “It creates a wider group of people who are like a Play Green team around the world.”