Sport has a huge cultural influence influence across society. Unfortunately, this influence is increasingly being used to promote high pollution lifestyles and industries - in particular, air travel to attend international tournaments and sponsorship by high carbon corporations, such as the fossil fuel industry and airlines. The carbon footprint of the sports sector has been little researched, so SGR has teamed up with other organisations to highlight the issue.

This page lists SGR's main outputs on the carbon footprint of sport, including reports and other outputs. 

Our collaborators in this area are the New Weather Institute, Cool Down: the Sport for Climate Action Network, Environmental Defense Fund, and Champions for Earth. 
 

Reports

Olympics Torched: How the Winter Olympics being a platform for polluters is melting the snow it depends on 
Stuart Parkinson, Andrew Simms; January 2026 

FIFA’s Climate Blind Spot: The men’s World Cup in a warming world 
Stuart Parkinson, Samran Ali, Freddie Daley; July 2025

Playing with the Planet: The climate cost of UEFA’s growth plan
Freddie Daley, Stuart Parkinson; May 2025

Dirty Tackle: The growing carbon footprint of football 
Stuart Parkinson, Andrew Simms; February 2025
 

2023-

Save our snow - ban Olympic fossil fuel ads
Andrew Simms; The Ecologist; January 2026 (article)

The hidden carbon footprint of the Winter Olympics 
Stuart Parkinson, Andrew Simms; January 2026 (blog)

2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup to be most polluting ever 
Media release; July 2025 

Large rise in European football's GHG emissions
Media release; May 2025

How big is the carbon footprint of football? 
Stuart Parkinson, Andrew Simms; February 2025 (blog)

Oil and gas ‘sportswashing’ now a 5.6 billion dollar industry
Andrew Simms; September 2024 (blog)

Offsets get the red card
Andrew Simms, Freddie Daley; June 2023 (journal article)

[image credit: New Weather Institute]