Rising temperatures, droughts, unseasonal rainfall, poor air quality and other extreme weather events linked to human-caused climate change are impacting every sport – and soccer is no exception.
From storm-induced postponements and players suffering from heat exhaustion to the recent devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, host of several matches during the next Fifa World Cup, the financial risk to organisations and businesses within the game is becoming, much like the climate emergency itself, increasingly difficult to ignore.
Indeed, a growing number of studies are shining a light on the impact of climate change on the world’s most popular sport. In the UK, many grassroots clubs are said to already be losing up to two months of the season due to waterlogged pitches. By 2050, research suggests one in four grounds in the top four tiers of English soccer will face flooding every year. Predictions of that nature abound as the game grapples with perhaps the most complex challenge mankind has ever faced.
Without meaningful action to reduce global carbon emissions and mitigate the most damaging impacts of climate change, the evidence indicates that soccer’s long-term viability will be thrown further into doubt. And yet competition expansion, calendar congestion and the construction of ever-larger stadiums – all of which demand more travel and thus produce more emissions – are conspiring to jeopardise the future of the beautiful game.
Experts say rapid decarbonisation is required, so what is being done to ensure soccer contributes less to the very problem that so threatens its business, if not its existence?
Tackling the problem
Recent years have seen soccer organisations make noteworthy progress in environmental sustainability. To date, efforts to introduce more sustainable practices have focused chiefly on operations, spanning energy consumption within stadia and other facilities, travel and transport, water efficiency, waste management and supply chain decarbonisation. As such, solar panel installations, plant-based catering options and recycling schemes are now common features across many events, leagues and venues.
At the top of the pyramid, governing bodies including Fifa and Uefa have published sustainability roadmaps outlining a raft of measures and targets concerning climate action around their competitions and events. Uefa’s comprehensive Football Sustainability Strategy 2030 leaves no stone unturned, having been structured around 11 policies – seven on human rights, four on the environment – and five areas of action. Indeed, Euro 2024 – widely considered a model for sustainable event delivery – encompassed a host of environmental initiatives, including the establishment of a first-of-its-kind €7.9 million Climate Fund which has supported hundreds of sustainable infrastructure projects for scores of amateur clubs and regional associations across Germany.
Further down the soccer pyramid, throughout domestic leagues and clubs across the globe, there are notable examples of organisations striving to enhance their green credentials. There is, however, a long way to go before soccer can be deemed a sustainable business.
“Football has made a lot of really good progress in the last four years specifically,” reflects Barney Weston, a sports sustainability expert and founder of Football For Future, a non-profit which supports clubs and other organisations to develop their sustainability strategies. “But when you compare it to other sectors, it is still quite far behind. So many other businesses have had sustainability strategies in development and in action for quite a long period, and football has really only just started to scratch the surface.”
For all the positive work being done to reduce soccer’s environmental impact, it remains practically impossible to accurately calculate the sport’s carbon footprint. Emissions reporting is complex, inconsistent and often lacks transparency, while many major clubs and organisations have yet to undergo an independent carbon audit. Available data is therefore patchy at best and any attempts at calculating overall emissions rely heavily on estimations.
While figures vary, perhaps the best estimate of the game’s overall emissions came earlier this year following a study by the New Weather Institute (NWI), a Sweden-based think tank. It determined that the global soccer industry pollutes as much as 66 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions equivalent (tCO2e), equal to around the whole of Austria, a developed nation of 9.1 million people. Assessing international and club competitions across both the men’s and women’s games, the report compiled emissions data relating to domestic and international match travel, stadium construction and operations, merchandise production, and sponsorship deals with heavily polluting companies.
According to the report, a single match at a men’s Fifa World Cup finals is estimated to emit between 44,000 tCO2e and 72,000 tCO2e – equivalent to between 31,500 and 51,500 average UK cars driven for an entire year. Adding in high carbon sponsorship-related emissions, those figures are estimated to increase, on average, by over 350 per cent.
Within the game, the push to quantify carbon emissions more accurately is gathering pace. In March 2024, for example, Uefa launched its Carbon Footprint Calculator, an online tool for stakeholders in Europe to calculate emissions related to mobility, purchased goods and services, facilities and logistics. Based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol methodology, the calculator is aligned with the principles of the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which came into force in 2023.
“Our aim is to establish a single approved means of measuring football’s carbon emissions, bringing greater consistency, transparency and comparability to carbon emission data within the game,” explains Filippo Veglio, Uefa’s head of social and environmental sustainability.
Aside from international tournaments, which require significant air travel by spectators, elite domestic leagues – those with annual attendances above one million – are major contributors towards soccer’s carbon footprint. According to a study by the BBC, the carbon footprint of a Premier League team can be equivalent to that of more than 3,000 average UK households. One fixture in England’s top flight is estimated to emit approximately 1,700 tCO2e, with travel-related emissions comprising around half of the total.
On a global level, it is widely acknowledged that fan travel, which is categorised for the purposes of carbon accounting under scope three emissions – i.e. those associated with processes and consumption in an organisation’s value chain – contributes significantly to soccer’s carbon footprint.
With that in mind, efforts are being made to promote more sustainable modes of transport. In Germany, for instance, many Bundesliga match tickets include free travel on public transport while in the UK, online ticketing platform Trainline’s ‘I came by train’ campaign, which has the support of some Premier League clubs, offers discounts on rail fares for fans travelling to away fixtures. Uefa took a similar approach during Euro 2024 in Germany, where the match schedule was designed to reduce group stage travel and, according to the tournament organisers, 81 per cent of match ticket holders used free public transport.
Given spectator travel is a significant contributor to soccer’s carbon footprint, fans are often incentivised to use public transport on match days
Such initiatives demonstrate how sports organisations are attempting to use their respective platforms to drive behavourial change. Yet they cannot necessarily dictate how fans travel to and from games beyond proactive encouragement and incentivisation schemes. Instead, employee travel is one area in which they do have more control.
In 2023, the UK’s Football Supporters’ Association (FSA) teamed up with Pledgeball, a charity focused on tackling climate change through collective action, and several clubs to launch the Sustainable Travel Charter. Its intention is to encourage and support clubs to reduce their dependence on short-haul domestic flights – the worst per-passenger form of travel for carbon emissions with substantial CO2 output.
In France, the national government has imposed a ban on short-haul flights where the same journey could be made by train in under two-and-a-half hours. Should the same law be implemented in the UK, there would be very few domestic fixtures for which Premier League clubs could legally charter private flights.
Besides matchday travel and emissions from stadium operations, another major contributor to soccer’s environmental impact is its production of goods, not least its fast fashion-like approach to replica kit manufacturing. With most clubs releasing two or three new kits each season, many end up contributing to the 100,000 tonnes of sportswear that ends up in landfill every year.
To tackle that particular issue, Green Football’s forthcoming ‘Great Save’ campaign will aim to encourage clubs, players, fans and the general public to donate, sell or re-use kit when it runs this spring. With support from a range of stakeholders, including the English Football League (EFL), Women’s Super League, and Premier League broadcasters Sky Sports and TNT Sports, it claims to be the largest climate-focused campaign of its kind in world soccer.
“This year – the campaign’s third season – focuses on saving kit from landfill, which emit methane, the most toxic greenhouse gas,” says Sarah Jacobs, co-founder and director at Green Football. “Throughout the campaign, fans will be donating, selling on or learning to repair their clothes – helping to reduce waste, save money, and support those in the community who may otherwise lack access to kit.
“Such seemingly small actions can make a big difference – keeping kit in play for just nine more months can reduce its carbon, water, and waste footprint by up to 30 per cent.”
Efforts are underway to limit air travel by teams and fans – but international tournaments and ever-expanding competitions make it unavoidable
Sounding the alarm
Despite ongoing efforts to reduce the sport’s environmental impact, soccer remains heavily dependent upon fossil fuels, both operationally and financially. The aforementioned NWI study into soccer’s global greenhouse gas emissions estimated that sponsorships promoting heavily polluting activities, such as airline travel, are by far the largest contributor to the sport’s carbon footprint, accounting for 75 per cent of the total.
That estimation followed another NWI report which studied fossil fuel company spending in sport. Titled ‘Dirty Money: How Fossil Fuel Sponsors are Polluting Sport’, the report found that at least US$5.6 billion was being spent by oil and gas companies on sponsorship of global sport across 205 active deals. Having amassed an estimated US$994 million from 59 agreements, soccer was found to have the most partnerships with the energy and petrochemical sectors than any other sport.
Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitter which became a global Fifa partner in 2024, was the sector’s biggest fossil fuel sponsor, paying nearly US$1.3 billion across ten active sponsorships, including three in soccer totalling an estimated US$757.6 million. Its chairman, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, is the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and holds the same title at Premier League side Newcastle United, just one of several top European clubs who are bankrolled by ownership groups and associated parties with close links to fossil fuels.
In September, flooding caused significant damage at the home of English soccer club AFC Wimbledon
In addition to oil and gas companies, many of the world’s top clubs, competitions and events count airlines among their major partners, while the aviation sector is active across all forms of sponsorship, from stadium naming rights and front-of-shirt deals to athlete endorsements. According to GlobalData, the aviation industry accounted for an estimated spend of over US$1.2 billion on sports sponsorship in 2024, a figure that is projected to rise to US$3.6 billion by 2033.
Given soccer’s international footprint, air travel is virtually unavoidable and, as such, airline sponsorship has long been a lucrative source of revenue for clubs. For the airlines themselves, sports like soccer are effective marketing platforms because they have broad appeal and, of course, generate significant spectator travel, therefore helping to drive consumer engagement through exclusive vacation packages, VIP experiences, and loyalty programme benefits.
Still, as critics point out, accepting money from such a high-polluting sector flies in the face of soccer’s stated environmental goals. Notably, the aviation industry has consistently lobbied against taking responsibility for its contribution towards climate change, while the sector currently has no viable technological alternative at scale to its fossil fuel dependence.
With that in mind, opposition to sponsorships with high-polluting companies has been growing within soccer for some time. As well as oil and gas companies and airlines, SUV manufacturers, cruise lines, banks that finance fossil fuel projects and cryptocurrencies have all been accused of using sponsorship to ‘sportswash’ their image. To date, the most vocal opposition has come from supporter groups and grassroots activists, as well as a minority of players and campaigns like Badvertising, another NWI-backed initiative which seeks to stop adverts and sponsorships ‘fuelling the climate emergency’.
Aramco’s Fifa sponsorship, which runs until 2027 and covers the next two editions of the men’s and women’s World Cups, was met with a stern backlash when, in October, more than 100 female players from 24 countries signed an open letter to Fifa calling for an end to the deal, calling it a “punch in the stomach” to their sport.
“Fifa are firmly on the side of the polluter,” argues Frank Huisingh, a co-founder of Fossil Free Football, a volunteer-led group that lobbies for a wholesale ban on sponsorship and advertising deals with big polluters. “Saudi Arabia, when it comes to climate, is the worst country on the planet. You read every report on the UN climate summit, they are the most unpopular delegates in the room because they try to stop all the action.
“There’s a lot of talk about Vision 2030 and diversifying its economy, [but] the fact that they go all in with an Aramco sponsorship, and they buy all these sports, and they make sure they’re close to Donald Trump: it’s to prolong the fossil fuel economy as long as possible. Fifa is being used for that and willingly used.”
Progress under pressure
Many soccer clubs and organisations, including Fifa, Uefa and the Premier League, are signatories to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework, which encourages sports stakeholders to adhere to a set of five principles and incorporate them into strategies, policies and procedures. It aims to create a climate action plan for sport in line with the Paris Agreement of 2015, when global governments committed to halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2040.
The framework requires signatories to reduce their overall climate impact, promote responsible consumption and report annually on their progress, but it remains non-binding and there is no legal obligation to follow through on any commitments. Still, heightening scrutiny and external pressures are beginning to bring about change.
The EU’s CSRD regulations, for example, require around 50,000 companies worldwide, including many large sports organisations, to track, measure and disclose their sustainability performance. In the UK, where an independent regulator to govern the game is set to be introduced, all 20 Premier League teams are now mandated to publish sustainability strategies, including ‘robust’ policies and the designation of a senior employee to lead the club’s environmental sustainability activities. Work is also underway to develop a common framework for action across the league as well as a standardised approach to measuring emissions.
Meanwhile initiatives like the Sport Positive Leagues aim to bring about greater accountability and transparency by monitoring and ranking clubs according to the work they are doing to reduce their environmental impact. This January, too, the EFL relaunched its ‘Green Clubs’ scheme, which assesses clubs bi-seasonally against environmental standards.
Last year, Arsenal became the first and only club in world soccer to have its net zero target approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Having been the first Premier League club to sign up to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework in 2020, the north London side are aiming to achieve net zero emissions by 2040 by targeting reductions across all three scopes of emissions. And yet, it rarely goes unnoticed, at least within sports sustainability circles, that the club’s shirt and home stadium are billboards for the world’s largest airline.
Premier League club Arsenal, who continue to promote Emirates airline, have had their net zero targets independently approved
That paradox speaks to the complex challenge facing those within global soccer who are working to reduce the sport’s environmental impact. Within any business, climate action initiatives must always be weighed against sporting and commercial interests, meaning tensions invariably arise. In many cases, environmental measures lead to long-term cost savings – for instance, Arsenal’s switch to LED lighting at Emirates Stadium is expected to reduce energy consumption by 30 per cent – but short-term results can take priority. What’s more, as in many sports, sustainability managers in soccer rarely sit on boards and therefore their influence on decision-making and cultural change is somewhat stifled.
“Their biggest challenge is creating a culture within the club or, quite often, building on the culture that’s already there,” notes Weston. “But the thing is, you can only go so far without fundamentally changing the business model of football. That’s the problem for the sustainability managers, but for the sector in general – it’s this conflict between environmental sustainability and commercial viability.
“Football is a commercial game, and it’s a fight. It’s quite a unique industry in so many different ways and it needs sponsors to survive. Let’s also not forget a lot of sponsors, yes, are questionable, but a lot of commercial partners are the reason why football really has started to work on this, because commercial partners are putting their foot down.”
As Weston sees it, the onus is on clubs and organisations to follow through on their initial commitments by digging into the weeds of what it really takes to make good on their environmental pledges. External pressure in the form of government legislation will be crucial in bringing about lasting change, he says, provided climate action is mandated as part of a robust, enforceable regulatory framework imposed upon the game.
“I feel that there does need to be another wave of pressure,” says Weston, who has been advising the UK government to ensure environmental sustainability is factored into the incoming soccer regulator’s powers. “I think that the regulator, when it comes in, should have sustainability in its remit,” he adds. “If there is going to be licensing criteria, in my eyes environmental sustainability and DEI should be part of it. And the conversation is rolling on there; we’re beginning to see more engagement from Westminster on this.
“The football regulator is going to be, I think, what pushes this to another level. And I think everyone in this sector, to be honest, knows that, but not everyone’s saying it because of a variety of different pressures that are involved.”
For Weston, then, there is hope for soccer’s future – but the sport, like society at large, must move from its current agenda-setting phase to coordinated action if meaningful progress is to be made.
“I believe in progress,” he says. “You can see, in the last four years, there has been progress in football. I think there are still a lot of open doors, and I think there will be a role for external sources of pressure, be it fans or commercial sponsors or staff within clubs or players. And I think that will come in time.
“I do think that these challenges are surmountable.”
This feature forms part of SportsPro’s Impact Week, a five-day run of exclusive content profiling sport’s social and environmental impact. Click here to find out more and access every piece of content for free.
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