by Suman Murthy, MBA’26
As the FIFA 2026 World Cup gets underway and fans travel to games across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, you might be wondering, like me: What impact do these games have on the climate? I was always curious about how mega events impact climate, and this year, as an EDGE Fellow, I took this opportunity to dig into the footprint of mega sporting events like the Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, and F1 Racing, which draw global audiences.
Here are six things I learned…
1. The carbon footprint of mega sporting events is extensive.
Mega sporting events have several common characteristics: concentrated attendance of thousands of fans, extensive infrastructure requirements, complex supply chains, stadium operations, hospitality, logistics, and security – which ultimately lead to massive carbon footprints. Some examples of events hosted in the past – the Paris 2024 Olympic Games contributed 1.6 million tons of carbon emissions (CO₂e), and the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar reported emissions of 3.6 million tons CO₂e. This year’s World Cup in North America is expected to have the largest carbon footprint of any World Cup to date; some estimates project it to contribute over 6 million tons CO₂e.
2. Travel is by far the biggest contributor to the climate footprint.
Construction (of venues, stadiums) and energy use are widely deemed as common contributors to climate impacts, but for large sporting events, the biggest impact by far comes from team and fan travel. For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, during which teams and fans will crisscross Canada, U.S., and Mexico for games, researchers estimate that as much as 87% of the tournament’s emissions will come from travel. The same pattern appears at other events. At the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, 65% of the total climate footprint came from spectators and participant travel. The NFL Super Bowl reports that up to 80% of its footprint is from air travel.
Eliminating the impact of travel is inherently difficult because these events by design are made to attract fans and teams from far away. Lowering emissions would require rethinking the fundamentals of how events are structured sited, and promoted.
3. Air and ground transportation solutions can improve event footprints.
Given the goal of bringing teams and fans together, the real opportunity is not eliminating travel but making it cleaner. For air travel, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) can cut lifecycle emissions by up to 80%. However, SAF currently only makes up 0.53% of global airline fuel usage, which highlights the need for investment and production of more renewable fuel.
Encouragingly, major airlines are starting to move into actual partnerships. United Airlines is expanding its deal with Neste (world’s leading producer of sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel) to bring SAF to Houston, Newark, and Dulles airports. In the sports world, Formula 1 became the first member of Qatar Airways’ SAF program, and Qatar Airways said its 2024 SAF purchase reduced emissions by 19,000 tons CO2.
Sporting events can also reduce their footprints by integrating public transport directly into tickets and discouraging cars. The Paris 2024 Olympics connected every venue by public transport and built 400km of new bike lanes. UEFA Euro 2024 match ticket holders received a 36-hour public transport pass at no extra cost across all 10 host cities to make the choice easy and they expected 70% of stadium attendees to use it.
4. Climate impacts present increasing risks to sporting events.
Heat has been a frequent topic of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America, as many of the teams’ host cities in the U.S. and Mexico are experiencing higher-than-average June temperatures. Climate risks, including increased extreme heat and more damaging storms have the potential to raise costs, disrupt operations, put revenue at risk, and affect bottom lines.
Games and venues can adapt, but it comes with direct costs. For example, 6 of the 16 host stadiums for the 2026 World Cup face extreme heat stress, with half requiring cooling systems, shading structures, or scheduling changes to meet safety standards. And even with adaptation measures in place, if wet-bulb temperature thresholds are crossed, play must stop or be modified, regardless of commercial consequences for organizers.
Adapting to climate impacts also changes events in ways that interfere with media and sponsorship contracts. Broadcasters pay premium rates for guaranteed, fixed windows (a summer World Cup, a July Summer Olympic Games) in part because they can schedule programming and sell advertising years in advance. Climate change is beginning to disrupt that model. FIFA’s shift of the Qatar 2022 World Cup from summer to winter, for example, disrupted major leagues, creating contractual issues across the football ecosystem. The 2030 World Cup in Spain, Portugal, and Morocco have potential to face similar situations as these places have already seen temperatures exceed 40°C.
5. Carbon offsets only go so far.
Many events reduce their footprints by purchasing carbon offsets. Carbon credits can be purchased by fans and/or event organizers. CarbonClick, for example, offers fans a travel impact contribution for a sports event; its integrated platform with SailGP NZ lets spectators calculate and mitigate their travel footprint directly.
But concerns about whether carbon offsets are durable or overstated can reduce credibility and backfire on organizers. For example, FIFA’s Qatar 2022 “carbon neutral” claim was ruled misleading, and the Paris Olympics 2024 stepped back from earlier “climate-positive” and “carbon-neutral” style language after scrutiny. The quality of offsets is frequently challenged; the most common projects depend on assumptions around permanence and additionality, and low-quality credits can exaggerate climate benefits while delivering little real reduction.
6. Innovative thinking about infrastructure and event design presents opportunities.
After travel, the second major source of emissions comes from the infrastructure required to host large sporting events – both permanent assets such as stadiums and arenas, and temporary infrastructure such as fan zones, athlete housing, hospitality suites, and event-specific seating. The Paris 2024 Olympics showed what good practice looks like: 95% of venues were pre-existing or temporary venues and the event used lower-carbon construction methods (wood framing, low-carbon concrete and recycled materials) for limited new construction.
The biggest opportunity exists in redesigning how the events themselves are structured. There are trade-off between two extremes: spread the event across many cities to maximize reach, or pack the event into one country to minimize travel between venues. In the past, these decisions have not necessarily been evaluated to optimize for carbon emissions. This leaves a white space for consulting and advisory firms and implementation partners in the sporting and events space to model what a good compromise looks like. Beyond this, live streaming, interactive digital viewing, and regional fan hubs offer expansive reach and democratized viewing, while keeping carbon emissions in control.
As the 2026 World Cup continues, I look forward to watching the games, but also think about ways events like this can become more carbon efficient in the future.
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