New Weather report finds Oil and Gas ‘sportswashing’ now a $5.6 billion industry
The time is now to ask “uncomfortable questions” regarding sponsors who threaten the future of sport, says former Australian soccer captain Craig Foster
Hear Team GB Paris Olympic champion, Imogen Grant, speak to the BBC Radio Today programme about the ‘Dirty Money’ report.
“Taking money from fossil fuel sponsors is sport signing a deal for more devastating impacts on floods, bush fires and heatwaves. We know oil and gas sponsors are the toughest opponents we face when it comes to protecting the future of the people and places we love, as well as the games we love.” David Pocock, former Captain of Australian national Rugby Union team, the Wallabies and Senator for the Australian Capital Territory
A New Weather Institute report Dirty Money – How Fossil Fuel Sponsors are Polluting Sport released today reveals that major oil and gas companies are spending at least $5.6 billion on the sponsorship of global sport across 205 active deals.
Our study finds high profile sports with the most deals are football, motor sports, rugby union and golf, with key sponsors including Aramco ($1.3 billion), Shell ($470 million), TotalEnergies ($340 million) and petrochemicals giant Ineos ($777 million).
The findings come just days ahead of the UN’s Summit of the Future later this month. New Weather’s work on fossil fuel sponsorship of sports through its Badvertising campaign has already contributed to shifting the conversation to question the acceptability of oil and gas money in sport at a time of climate crisis. This report shows the huge scale of the issue and the urgent need to clean up the sports sponsorship world.
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.”
“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,” said Imogen Grant, Paris 2024 Olympic Champion and 2x Team GB Olympian
“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.” said Andrew Simms, co-director of the New Weather Institute