Why it’s so hard to kick fossil fuels out of sport
Governments and public relations firms are under pressure to, in UN secretary-general António Guterres’s words, stop “fuelling the madness” and ban fossil fuel advertising or cut ties with the industry.
France, Amsterdam, Sheffield and Edinburgh have all restricted fossil fuel advertising to differing degrees in recognition of the industry’s responsibility for climate breakdown.
People working in the advertising industry are among those calling for an end to working with fossil fuel companies. There is a reputational risk with continuing to represent these businesses. Four advertising agencies recently lost a sustainability certification for taking an oil company as a client.
Oil and gas advertising is perhaps most prolific in sport. A recent report estimated that fossil fuel companies have invested more than £4 billion across 200 sponsorship deals.
Fellow researchers have appealed for sport to be included in any further advertising bans. There is a precedent: a tobacco advertising ban came into force in the UK in 2002. Bear in mind, that ban took nearly 40 years of campaigning and tobacco executives have shown they’re capable of navigating its loopholes.
Even so, the fossil fuel industry will prove significantly harder to purge than tobacco. Here’s why.
‘No fossil fuels, no sport’
Human development is largely a story of increasing energy use. Oil in particular has transformed everyday life beyond comprehension.
Whether it be in the form of high-profile sponsorship deals, sporting equipment made from petrol-based products like carbon fibre or flying to meet the demand for ever more fixtures, modern sport reflects society’s oil dependency.
The fossil fuel industry knows this. Despite the longstanding scientific consensus that fossil fuels must be phased out, the industry seeks to convince the public that oil and gas will still be needed for a very long time.
Analysis of one oil company’s sustainability reports identified how its communications strategy shifted from denying the results of climate science to more subtle efforts to delay an energy transition. These included the argument that fossil fuels are an irreplaceable precondition for “the good life”.
Sport is a vehicle for perpetuating this argument. In 2021, an oil and gas trade association in the US launched a campaign showcasing sports products made from petroleum, the implication being that people cannot enjoy sport without fossil fuels.
Sport is poised for corporate piggybacking because it evokes connection, pride and security in fans and spectators – feelings the fossil fuel industry is keen to capitalise on. An analysis of the Canadian oil industry’s advertising between 2006 and 2015 documented a shift from images of the natural environment to those depicting family life and domesticity.
This kind of pernicious messaging, which entrenches fossil fuels within the things people hold dear, will be hard for legislators to reverse.
Oil change
Imre Szeman, a professor of human geography who specialises in the energy transition, urges us to comprehend just how deep our relationship with oil runs.
Addressing climate change is not simply a technical matter, but a cultural one as well. An issue of how we grasp what is so often taken for granted in everyday life.
Change will not only require acknowledging the severity of the environmental crisis, but to recognise how its primary causes have shaped society, including in elite sport. It’s crucial to understand modern societies as oil societies if we are ever to envisage one no longer dependent on it.
So, considering sport, the first step is to remove the cognitive dissonance that surrounds modern elite sporting culture, the nature of its oil dependency and the consequences of climate change.
Sporting organisations can start by saying no to fossil fuel sponsorship. There are examples of this happening already in tennis, rugby and the Olympics, with Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo indicating an oil company was not welcome as a sponsor of the 2024 Games.
Change happens by disaster or by design. It’s time to recognise the decades long influence wielded by the fossil fuel industry.
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Theo Lorenzo Frixou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.