Pro Sports Reduces Its Climate Footprint Inches at a Time

Fall in the U.S. is when three major sports leagues – football, basketball and hockey – start their seasons. Baseball also continues, and in the UK and Europe, some of the major soccer leagues like the Premier League have started their seasons as well. Additionally, college sports with larger budgets, like American football and basketball, have teams that travel by air. 

With major sports comes major travel. And air travel is still a heavy contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, with some data saying it constitutes up to 12% of total global travel emissions. According to the International Energy Agency, air travel is heading in the wrong direction related to the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 goal. 

Most professional sports rely on air travel to get to games. Between private planes, chartered flights and commercial flights, and because of the intensity of scheduling, there is no way around traveling by plane to meet league and TV scheduling requirements. On top of team travel, dedicated fans typically book flights to games that aren’t local enough to travel by car or bus. 

So where do pro sports stand in terms of their carbon impact? Last year, the United Nations published a policy brief outlining the ways that sport can address climate change, by “raising awareness, influencing behaviors, and shrinking its carbon footprint.” The brief quoted a study that found the 2016 Rio Olympics was responsible for 3.6 million tons of carbon dioxide. The UN report recommended several actions: reducing the carbon footprint of buildings; compiling more data on the carbon footprint of sports; and using sports as a “tool for climate action.”

There are tangible examples of teams around the world taking action against climate catastrophe. In the English Premier League for soccer, a recent study by Sports Positive Leagues concluded that “we have probably seen one of the biggest leaps in progress from clubs across the board” in relation to sustainability and lessening impact on climate. This group, part of the Sports Positive network, measured such things as clean energy, energy efficiency, sustainable transport and single-use plastic reduction. Manchester United, a team in the Premier League that ranked third in the Sports Positive rankings, also announced they would buy carbon offsets against their recent travel to the U.S. The offsets that the team will use for its estimated 450 tons of CO2 emissions from its 2023 summer tour will be used at the Crow Lake Wind project in South Dakota. 

In the U.S., just a few years ago the National Basketball Association (NBA) was the most polluting league of the four American sports leagues. But in 2022, the league reduced team travel mileage by about 2,000 miles per team. But it’s not just team travel – the overall carbon output is impacted by fans, the energy of the arena and the kind of materials, like single-serve plastic, used inside arenas. In April of 2022, Atlanta’s State Farm Arena — home to the Atlanta Hawks NBA team — received a TRUE Platinum certification from Green Business Certification Inc. for its efforts in reaching zero waste. 

The most high-profile green sports event was the opening of Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena in 2021. The building is expected to receive a net-zero certification and purports to be the first net-zero carbon arena in the world, a claim that’s difficult to verify.

Other arenas are moving green: Sacramento’s Golden One Center is powered by 100% solar energy and uses 45% less water than required and is a LEED Platinum building. And Toronto’s arena uses deep-lake water cooling instead of air conditioning compressors. Other stadiums in the U.S. with significant climate initiatives include those in Philadelphia, Ohio State and Portland. 

A recent news item out of Australia noted that the men’s national soccer teams in Australia purchased carbon offsets against their travel to the World Cup in Qatar. And the NFL’s Houston Texans have purchased offsets for this NFL season and two more from 1PointFive, a subsidiary of oil giant Occidental. 

While such actions appear well-intentioned, however, carbon offsets have yet to be proven effective. A study from this year showed that 94% of forest offset credits did not offset any emissions. The Texans are purchasing their credits against the massive direct air carbon capture plant being built in the Permian Basin in Texas. These facilities haven’t even been built yet, and direct air carbon capture is a nascent technology that, some say, is more of a benefit to the fossil fuel companies than to the environment.

The Paris Olympics of 2024 is promising “to halve the emissions arising in relation to the Games, while offsetting even more CO₂ emissions than we will generate.” A noble goal, to be sure, but as with all areas of the professional sports ecosystem, drastic improvements need to be made to make a dent in our warming climate.