The young athlete of the year at the green sport awards is a Norwegian football player.
A young sports person who is either professional or on a pathway to elite sport has demonstrated support for environmental and/or climate change issues and is the first recipient of an award.
The Union Berlin and Norway player is balancing his football career with his work in the climate change conversation.
He founded the We Play Green Foundation in 2020 in order to bring together footballers and galvanise climate action in the football industry.
Heerenveen's environmental work began when he persuaded the club to buy bikes for the players, after he moved to the Netherlands.
In recognition of the Paris Climate Agreement goal to keep global warming below 2C, Thorsby changed his squad number from one to two.
The 1.5 degree target was established after that. It's even more difficult and better. It is not possible to put the 1.5 on my shirt.
It wasn't always easy to combine his passion for the environment and football.
He said that when he began to understand all the problems and the huge challenge that was in front of us, it became overwhelming.
I contemplated quitting my career in the summer of 2015. I wanted to do as much as possible. Being a football player and doing a great individual project as a professional athlete, when we have a huge crisis, made me feel like a failure.
Individuals cannot make the difference on their own.
"We need systematic change and we need our decision-makers to make it easier for us to make these decisions because I know how difficult it can be."
At the center of his work is an awareness of the platform he and his fellow football players have to influence change
He said that his father told him that the best thing he could do for the environment was to become as good as possible in football.
That is what he did with the foundation.
He wants to see football players understand the impact they could have if they really engage.
"We will create a common movement among players to actually drive this force forward, and we will take the experience I had with actually speaking about this, take the experience from the other people doing this, and create a common movement among players to actually drive this force forward"
Football players are the most influential people in the world because of the huge platforms they have to speak out on.
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