The World Cup must pay its carbon bill
The logic of carbon neutrality is simple. Whenever a building consumes energy, a factory produces materials, a firm distributes goods around the world, or a
The logic of carbon neutrality is simple. Whenever a building consumes energy, a factory produces materials, a firm distributes goods around the world, or a city builds infrastructure, there is an environmental price tag. It can be calculated. It can be minimised. And where residual emissions remain after all reasonable reductions, they must be accounted for. Today, this rationale forms the basis for how we judge businesses, government projects and the activities of numerous institutions. It should also apply to the world’s most prominent events, including football’s biggest tournaments. This is also the reasoning behind carbon pricing schemes and tariffs. Governments worldwide are beginning to acknowledge that pollution costs should be covered. A particular industry may be required to account for its high greenhouse gas emissions through taxes, carbon markets, more stringent regulations and increased reporting requirements. Naturally, this mechanism’s main objective is not to penalise any economic activity. The key is to make visible the costs that were previously hidden. Energy-intensive technologies have benefitted people for decades, but the climate has paid the price. Thus, carbon pricing aims to address this injustice in a fairly direct manner. Sports should be treated in the same way. Businesses that contribute to the construction of our buildings, supply us with energy at home, provide us with fuel for air travel, and produce our goods are frequently questioned about how they affect the climate. However, when it comes to major sporting events, the scrutiny often becomes softer and less rigorous.
Despite being a fantastic aspect of culture, football undoubtedly has a significant environmental footprint. There is an environmental impact when teams, fans, sponsors, broadcast media and equipment are transported across nations for a competition. This issue with the 2026 FIFA World Cup cannot be avoided. The tournament, which began on June 11 and runs until July 19, is bigger than previous editions and spans a vast geographic area. With 48 teams competing in 104 games across 16 host cities in the US, Canada, and Mexico, suppliers, sponsors, journalists, officials, teams and spectators are travelling across North America largely by air. This scale of movement has a significant environmental impact: an independent bottom-up estimate by carbon accounting platform Greenly puts the tournament’s total footprint at roughly 7.8 million tonnes of CO2e, with spectator travel alone responsible for around 88 percent of the total. Beyond travel, stadium operations also consume large amounts of energy through lighting, cooling, broadcasting, security and food services, while travelling fans require accommodation. Each of these elements adds to the event’s overall carbon footprint. The scale of the tournament matters financially as well as environmentally. FIFA initially budgeted around $11bn in revenue for its 2023-2026 cycle, with the 2026 World Cup as the biggest event in that period, and has since revised that revenue target upwards. That is a substantial sum of money. If the event can generate such vast revenues, sustainability should not be treated as a slogan or an afterthought.
The BriefWire