Carbon-neutral Olympics, World Cup, Formula 1, mass sports can not only mitigate the climate catastrophe, but also increase the climate awareness of the masses! All in all, playing sport causes 350 million tonnes of CO2 emissions on Earth every year, which is 1% of human CO2 emissions

Sport is a major contributor to health and happiness and therefore a desirable activity, but what if you are putting yourself at risk by its emissions? For example, skiing will be a dream in a few years’ time because there will be no snow. Fortunately, there is huge potential for this footprint to be reduced, or even eliminated.

In the year of the Olympics and the football World Cup, this is particularly important, as this year the Earth’s climate is on a shocking trajectory, with sea temperatures rising to unprecedented levels that could bring a series of weather disasters.

Major sporting events are primarily a burden on the environment because of the travel and accommodation of spectators and participants, while the carbon footprint of everyday sporting activities is made up of three main components. These are the travel associated with sport, the footprint of building and operating sports facilities, and the smallest footprint of manufacturing sports equipment

These already show where there is the greatest potential to reduce it. Professional TV coverage of a sporting event that attracts a large number of spectators can be far superior to on-site attendance, saving millions of people travelling. Today, lightweight battery-powered drones can often replace kerosene-flying helicopters for coverage, but reducing the number of sporting events can also significantly reduce the carbon footprint.

The carbon footprint of an installation is primarily proportional to the amount of concrete installed and its energy consumption. Therefore, efforts should be made to reduce energy consumption through passive house quality architecture, the use of renewable energy sources and increasing the occupancy of the facility.

Unfortunately, there are some sports where this is not possible, which might be better forgotten, such as golf courses with their huge carbon footprint due to intensive turf management, skydiving with its megawatt electricity consumption, or indoor skydiving with its megawatt electricity consumption. But it also includes motorised “sports”, car racing, cross-country skiing.

For sports equipment, durability and repairability are key, as the carbon footprint of production is reduced per unit of time spent playing sports.

It is crucial to measure the carbon footprint of sport, both at individual and event level, to see where potential interventions can be made to reduce it and how much voluntary carbon credits can be used to offset the remaining carbon burden to reduce it to zero.

In some cases, sport can significantly reduce the carbon footprint, such as when someone replaces driving to work with cycling, walking or running. These need to be encouraged at company and public level, for example through tax breaks, subsidies, provision of secure bike storage, changing rooms, showers, free company bikes and other incentives.

Péter Lenkei