Reports Expose Damning Depths Of FIFA’s ‘Carbon Neutral’ Fraud

When Qatar was awarded the right to stage the November 2022 FIFA World Cup in December 2010, both Dohar and football’s international governing body made much of the event’s environmental credentials. The pair boldly delcared it would be the first carbon neutral World Cup in history.

In the years since, that seismic claim, and passionate affirmations of a commitment to sustainability, have reverberated loudly and prominently in most marketing material and public statements related to the 2022 World Cup. On June 5th this year, the 50th annual World Environment Day, the UN’s principal public vehicle for encouraging awareness and action on climate change, FIFA president Gianni Infantino went to the extent of raising a “Green Card for the Planet”, to promote environmental protection.

Just two days later though, the Swiss Commission for Loyalty, a component of Zurich’s Fair Trade Commission, issued a damning report, branding FIFA’s repeated assertion that the 2022 World Cup would be carbon neutral as “false and misleading”. Scoop has obtained the ruling (French), which notes “strict standards” are required to prove environmental claims:

“Factual allegations must be correct by law and must not be misleading…FIFA used absolute statements, thus creating the false and misleading impression that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was already climate or CO2 neutral before and during the tournament…The burden of proof lies with the advertising company. FIFA was unable to provide the proof of correctness required.”

While the Commission’s conclusions aren’t binding, FIFA has been firmly advised not to repeat the slogan again, an entreaty that has evidently been swiftly acted upon. As of 13 June, a section of the Association’s official website prominently features a link to a dedicated page on the “Carbon Neutral FIFA World Cup™”. Yet, would-be visitors are now jokingly told, “oops…looks like this page got lost in the alleys of Souq Waqif,” a famous marketplace in Dohar.

First greenwashing, then coverup

Nonetheless, an archive of the offending page can be found. Alongside photos of Qatar’s World Cup venues under construction, a lengthy text makes multiple boasts of how limiting carbon emissions would inform every aspect of the forthcoming event, while investment in green projects “will offset any of the remaining emissions” associated with the 2022 tournament.

This included the Cup’s eight constituent stadiums being built according to “stringent sustainability benchmarks”, which would ensure “lower energy and water consumption, the reusing and recycling of water and materials wherever possible [and] highly efficient cooling systems.” Meanwhile, “light rail trams and fuel-efficient bus fleet will play an important contribution in mitigating carbon emissions, with a number of electric buses being deployed for the event.” Solar energy would also “help power” the country during the tournament.

This grand undertaking would, according to a “detailed estimation” of the 2022 World Cup’s emissions footprint, make the event carbon neutral. That calculation estimated 3.63 million tonnes of CO2 could be expected in Qatar.

This assertion was central to the Swiss Commission’s investigation. In submissions, FIFA claimed it had already offset this carbon total, but did not provide any evidence of how this was achieved, or if it met Switzerland’s legal definitions of carbon neutrality.

“Whether FIFA's estimate is realistic or accurate could not be conclusively assessed,” the Commission ruled. “Even if the estimate should one day correspond to the definitive figures, it remained unclear whether the promised compensation was realistic at all.”

The Commission probe was triggered by five separate complaints from NGOs in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK, all of which relied heavily on the findings of a May 2022 report by Carbon Market Watch, a copy of which Scoop has obtained.

Carbon Market Watch forensically analyzed the various creative accounting techniques FIFA and the government of Qatar relied upon to reach the 3.63 million tonnes figure. It speculates that the total footprint of stadiums constructed for the World Cup alone was underestimated by a factor of eight.

The report also examined proposed mechanisms of mitigating climate impact during the tournament, which it was claimed would absorb CO2 emissions. For example, the creation of a “large-scale tree and turf nursery in the middle of the desert” - Carbon Neutral Watch considered this approach “not credible” as an offset, and lacking “integrity”.

Similarly, the World Cup’s organizers have helped establish a new carbon credit standard, the Global Carbon Council. While it was supposed to deliver at least 1.8 million credits to offset World Cup emissions, mere months away from the tournament, it had only greenlit two projects, and issued over 130,000 credits.

“Some of the emission reduction measures implemented are unlikely to have a meaningful and durable impact on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and might lead fans and citizens around the world to believe that the organisers are achieving more positive climate results than they actually are,” Carbon Market Watch concluded. “This could lead to present and future complacency about a tournament with a significant carbon footprint, resulting in continued damage to the climate.”

In light of the Swiss Commission’s ruling too, FIFA is yet to fulfil its pledge to buy and use enough credits to cover the entirety of the World Cup’s emissions, more than six months after the tournament ended. It has to date used credits representing under 1.1 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, less than a third of its own gross underestimations of the event’s carbon footprint.

Commenting on the news, Lindsay Otis, Carbon Market Watch said mega sporting events, as well as corporations, must “stop making preposterous carbon neutrality claims, to avoid the risk of reputational damage or legal challenges as the public becomes increasingly aware of and sceptical about these dodgy greenwashing practices.”

Her organization believes the Swiss Commission’s findings send a strong signal to governments and regulators “to get their act together and impose an outright ban on terms that imply carbon or climate neutrality of products (goods and services) or companies.”

“The EU institutions must go the extra mile and enact a clear and total ban on carbon neutrality claims, because anything short of that will not only fail to protect consumers, but will also fail to push corporations towards truly sustainable practices,” Otis concludes.

ENDS

Kit Klarenberg

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