UEFA has ambitious climate goals for EURO 2024
Kicking off EURO 2024
The 2024 UEFA European Football Championship is well underway, with Germany marking the start of the tournament with an emphatic win over Scotland.
From June 14th to July 14th, Germany is hosting the 17th edition of this tournament. 24 teams will play a total of 51 games to determine the next European football champion.
This tournament takes place every four years, and it is one of the world’s largest sporting events, with billions of fans following around the world.
For this year’s edition, UEFA aims to ensure that the tournament meets the highest standards of environmental sustainability.
To that end, they presented at COP 28 their €32 million ESG strategy, which accounts for 5% of the tournament’s total budget.
Pitching a new schedule to reduce travel emissions
EURO 2024 is estimated to generate 490,000 tonnes of CO2e, which is approximately 7 times less than what was calculated for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Some of the benefits of hosting the tournament in Germany are that no new stadiums need to be built and that the country is centrally located in Europe.
However, it is estimated that roughly 80% of the tournament’s impact will come from fans travelling to Germany from all over the continent.
To minimize these emissions, efforts have been made to create three regional clusters for the group stage games, which will reduce fan and team travel emissions between games.
For example, England will be playing its three group stages games in the West of Germany in Gelsenkirchen, Cologne and Frankfurt.
While over 75% of team transfers between group stage games were done by plane at the 2016 Euros in France, Germany is expecting that number to drop to 25% for EURO 2024.
On top of that, ticket holders will be able to use public transportation freely with their tickets for a total of 36 hours before and after the game.
Additionally, Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s rail network, will offer discounted train tickets to fans to encourage low-carbon transportation.
Addressing unavoidable emissions through a Climate Fund
Despite its best efforts to reduce the emissions of EURO 2024, UEFA recognises that some of the tournament’s emissions are unavoidable. That is why they have created a climate fund.
UEFA has priced every tonne of CO2 produced by EURO 2024. The funds will support environmental projects driven by amateur football clubs in Germany.
Prior to the tournament, they expected this climate fund to amount to €7 million. These funds will support projects such as smart irrigation systems, heat pumps, and solar panel installations.
UEFA have opted for this strategy as it can be less risky than investing in offset markets, and it has the potential to create waves of climate action at all levels of German football.
Setting new standards for sustainability in sports events
Through this tournament, UEFA aims to raise awareness among football fans throughout the world about the importance of environmental stewardship.
With EURO 2024, they aspire to set a new standard for event sustainability in sports and inspire other organisations to take climate action.
Reaching Net Zero will require the involvement of national teams, professional and amateur clubs, as well as football governing bodies such as tournament organisers and leagues.
International events such as EURO 2024 hold immense power in raising awareness of environmental topics and incentivising people to take climate action within and outside of football.
