Two countries, 10 stadiums, 32 teams, 70,000 miles – carbon footprint of Women’s World Cup
This year’s World Cup made great strides towards financial sustainability for the women’s game, with Fifa reporting that the event broke even for the first time after generating more than $570 million (£449 million), but what about environmental sustainability?
As the first women’s tournament to be staged in the southern hemisphere, the first involving 32 teams and the first hosted by two confederations, it felt almost inevitable that this tournament would generate more carbon emissions than any previous staging of the Women’s World Cup.
Efforts were made to make the tournament ‘greener’. The cost of travelling to stadiums via public transport was included in every match ticket to encourage fans not to use cars and organisers provided free access to public transport to tournament volunteers, official suppliers and accredited personnel.
Fifa also called on fans to avoid single-use plastic, encouraging supporters to bring reusable water bottles to refill at matches. At each stadium there were recycling stations as well as ‘football rewilded’ green space installations to draw fans’ attention towards local biodiversity.
However, when it comes to environmental impact there is one factor at this tournament that cannot be ignored: air travel.
Telegraph Sport has calculated that the 32 teams travelled more than 70,000 miles to get between fixtures at this tournament, almost three times the circumference of the Earth. And that does not include the distances flown by teams to get to Australia and New Zealand in the first place.
Teams travelled an average of 750 miles to get from one match to the next and only 11 times across the 64-game tournament did a team play back-to-back games in the same city. And where teams go, their fans go. Journeys across to Perth on Australia’s west coast were the biggest contributor to the distances travelled, meaning that the Republic of Ireland – despite exiting at the group stages – covered the third-highest number of miles during the tournament.
Antoine Poincaré, head of the Climate School, which is the learning arm of global insurer AXA Climate, told Telegraph Sport: “People travelling, especially spectators rather than the team, is one of the biggest carbon footprints of any sports team. That has to be kept in mind. You can optimise these things, so let a team’s qualification matches all be on the east coast or the west coast. It’s better for them and better for travellers.”
Chris Maclean, chief executive of Open Energy Market, which provides sports teams and businesses with guidance on how to reach net-zero targets, wants to see more done by Fifa to recognise a tournament’s carbon footprint, saying: “Yet another major global event has been and gone with the governing body paying lip service to sustainability.
“They’re not doing anything that is going to have a transformative impact on sustainability. These events are there to educate, they’re there to inspire, they’re there to lead the way, as there are so many eyes on this event. They have such an amazing opportunity and it just makes me sad that it’s another opportunity lost.”
Asked by Telegraph Sport whether they feel enough is being done to reduce the environmental impact of this tournament, a Fifa spokesperson said: “An ex-ante carbon footprint was estimated before the tournament. Fifa is currently updating that inventory with actual tournament data and will calculate the tournament’s carbon emissions through an ex-post carbon footprint. In regards to team travel at the 2023 tournament, Fifa will offset emissions under its operational control with carbon credits.
“Several sustainability requirements are part of the bidding process for Fifa tournaments, including for the FWWC 2023. A comparison of potential carbon footprints of tournaments was not conducted to support decision-making and selection of hosts.
“The long-term approach to emissions’ reduction is set in the Fifa Climate Strategy launched at the COP26 in 2021. Tournaments are one part of Fifa’s activities and certainly integral to the Fifa’s commitment of reducing emission by 2030. Like for any large enterprise, we understand that achieving those goals will be challenging and require strong concerted efforts and adaptations.”
At the World Cup, 44 players, including Canada’s Jessie Fleming, donated money to various climate charities and initiatives, working with Common Goal and Football For Future. The latter’s founder, Elliot Arthur-Worsop, said: “Governing bodies need to acknowledge the impact that their tournaments have on the natural world and introduce carbon considerations as key criteria in the bidding process for hosting future tournaments.”
The USA and Mexico are bidding for the 2027 World Cup, along with Brazil, South Africa and a joint Belgium-Germany-Netherlands proposal.
Poincaré added: “For big worldwide events, in my dreams, there might be a green premium for countries that are doing more. When choosing where to host a big event, we should ask, what about host countries with greener transport?”
With Canada, Mexico and the USA staging 2026’s men’s event, the use of air travel is set to soar again. Environmentalists will be watching closely to see whether 2027’s women’s version will serve as a turning point on football’s emissions.
