News article
Fossil fuel giants spend billions on ‘sportswashing’ sponsorships
Accusations of sportswashing by fossil fuel giants have been reignited by a new study that estimates that companies in the sector had active sports sponsorship deals worth a collective total of $5.6bn (£4.2bn/€5bn) this year.
The research by the New Weather Institute (NWI), a think tank cooperative, claimed that in March 2024 these businesses had a total of 205 active sports sponsorships across 19 sports, with an average length of 3.31 years per agreement.
Football had 58 deals in place, followed by motorsports with 39, rugby union with 17 and golf with 15. Other sports backed by such companies included ice hockey, American football, basketball and tennis.
NWI stated that “sport is increasingly one of the areas oil and gas companies are using to greenwash their reputation, betting billions on sponsorships that allow them to paint themselves as public-spirited, generous corporations”.
Dirty Money – How Fossil Fuel Sponsors are Polluting Sport also estimated the value of sponsorship-related commitments in the space by the likes of Aramco (£1bn), Shell (£354m), TotalEnergies (£256m) and petrochemicals giant Ineos (£585m).
However, the estimated total investment in sponsorships by fossil fuel companies is likely to be significantly higher than the reported figures.
“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."
“This exercise is hampered by the lack of publicly available information on how much money is being spent, the length of sponsorships and whether other donations or ‘payments in kind’ were included in such deals,” the study stated.
“Even where more detail is available, figures may not include additional spending on public relations, social media, hospitality and other promotional work. This means the actual amount of fossil fuel company money in sport is very likely to be many times greater than the figures revealed in this report.”
According to NWI, burning oil, gas and coal contributes to 75% of greenhouse gas emissions and 90% of carbon emissions.
Two-time TeamGB Olympian and Paris 2024 Olympic rowing champion, Imogen Grant, told BBC Radio 4: “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.”