A new report uncovers the extent to which fossil fuel corporations use the popularity of sport to promote their ‘brand’, and divert attention away from their highly polluting activities.
Responsible Science blog, 27 September 2024
Major oil and gas companies are spending at least $5.6 billion on the sponsorship of global sport across 205 active deals, new analysis released by the New Weather Institute reveals. The study finds that the high profile sports with the most deals are football, motor sports, rugby union and golf. The top four sponsors are Aramco ($1.3 billion), Ineos ($777 million), Shell ($470 million), and TotalEnergies ($340 million). The report – Dirty Money - How Fossil Fuel Sponsors are Polluting Sport – also identifies the fastest growing investments as coming from Middle Eastern petrostates.
The report collates aggregated data on currently-active energy and petrochemical sponsorship deals within sport. Where no monetary value was attached to the deal, the report makes informed estimates through comparisons with other, similar sponsorship deals where the total spending is known.
The findings come soon after a call from UN Secretary General António Guterres for a ban on all fossil fuel advertising.
Together, the companies identified in the report have a huge responsibility for climate change. The UN Environment Programme estimates that annual adaptation costs in developing countries could reach $300 billion by 2030. The findings also come following the hottest summer on record, which featured warnings from athletes and climate scientists that future summers of sport could be “impossible” due to climate change.
Andrew Simms is Assistant Director of Scientists for Global Responsibility and Co-director of the New Weather Institute which published the report. He commented that, “Oil companies, who are delaying climate action and pouring more fuel on the fire of global heating, are using big tobacco’s old playbook and trying to pass themselves off as patrons of sport. But air pollution from fossil fuels and the extreme weather of a warming world threaten the very future of athletes, fans and events ranging from the Winter Olympics to World Cups. If sport is to have a future it needs to clean itself of dirty money from big polluters and stop promoting its own destruction.”
In a foreword written for the new report, former Australian men’s football captain, Craig Foster said, “It’s sobering, though unsurprising, to see that my own sport, football, leads the league of shame for fossil fuel sponsorship… [F]or too long, the uncomfortable questions regarding the oil and gas sponsors who are undermining our safe future and that of sport have been ignored. We, as athletes, fans, and custodians of sport, must address them.”
Paris 2024 Olympic Champion rower, and twice TeamGB Olympian, Imogen Grant, added, “The fact that Paris created a fossil fuel free Olympics games shows that it’s not necessary for other sports to accept a poisoned chalice from oil and gas sponsors. Any short term financial gain is just not worth it, when we can see the devastating impacts that are playing out in communities worldwide, in grassroots sport and sport more widely.”
Many of the sponsorship deals are US-based. Samuel Mattis, twice US Olympian, USA Track and Field Champion and NCAA Champion, commented, “In the US we're no stranger to athletes dying from heat. In terms of the sports taking money from oil and gas companies, the phrase that comes to mind is ‘penny wise dollar dumb’. Yeah, you can make a little more money short term working with these fossil fuel companies. But in the long term you're risking sport’s ability to make money, the health of fans, the lives of athletes and the health of the entire planet. It's just immoral.”
Climate impacts will mostly be felt in the Global South. Pragnya Mohan, the most decorated triathlete in Indian history said, "We talk about ‘clean sport’ in a doping context and publicly call out the athletes taking drugs, who cheat to win and bring sport into disrepute. It’s important that this report is doing the same when it comes to dirty money from fossil fuel sponsors. We know that oil and gas companies poison sport and the planet we play on - it’s time to get them off sport’s billboards."
The report concludes by urging sporting authorities to end sponsorship from fossil fuel companies and demand transparency on sponsors’ emissions data and mitigation measures.
[image credit: New Weather Institute]
