Formula 1. Beloved by many for its combination of top engineering, complex strategy, traveling juggernaut, and ridiculously fast cars, F1 is truly a global sport. With 700 million fans scattered all over the world, F1 is the fourth-most watched sport globally. However, as the sport moves around the world during the nine month season, it emits a staggering amount of carbon into the atmosphere. In 2022, the 10 teams, 20 drivers, and thousands of other workers contributed to release 223,031 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. That’s almost 15,000 flights between New York and San Francisco. In this article, I will break down exactly how F1 pollutes so much. Then, I’ll explore the future of the sport in a more climate friendly world.

The Cars

F1 cars are optimized to go as fast as possible in both a straight line and in the corners. However, they are not optimized for efficiency. The average F1 car gets about 6 miles to the gallon. Throughout the 22 race weekends in 2022, which included 3 practice sessions, qualifying, and the race, F1 cars emitted only about 2,000 tons of carbon. That’s less than 1% of F1’s total output for the season! So what’s going on? Well, there’s a lot more to F1 than just the cars. It’s a huge logistical operation that involves a lot more steps than just the races. The next biggest category for carbon emissions is the factories.

Facilities and Factories

F1 cars have to be made somewhere. 7 of the teams have factories in the United Kingdom, with 1 in Switzerland, 1 in Italy, and 1 in the United States. These factories are mostly powered by the local grid, which isn’t always the most environmentally friendly. But these are simply buildings, the real carbon footprint in this category comes from the facilities at each race. Each race weekend, teams set up garages and motorhomes, as well as facilities for corporate sponsors. Those include bleachers, boxes, and other fan accommodations. Traditionally, each team powered their own facilities with a temporary generator, which was a huge emitter of carbon. However, in 2022, F1 experimented with having a centralized system to power all the facilities. This reduced carbon emissions by almost 90% from before the switch. Still, in 2022, factories and facilities represented about 22% of F1’s total carbon emissions, or 45,000 tons of carbon.

Business Travel

As the drivers move from place to place, so must the teams. Teams have dozens of personnel that travel every week, such as executives, engineers, and mechanics. Furthermore, F1 itself has hundreds of employees that are present at each race: the broadcasting, safety, and media teams, just to name a few. This culminates in a lot of travel for all of those people. As illustrated in this graph, the travel required of personnel for the sport is tremendous. And that adds up to a lot of carbon emissions. 65,000 tons of carbon, to be exact. That is 30% of F1’s total and 9,000 American households annual emissions. To cut down on these emissions, F1 is working to make a lot more of its jobs remote. That way, the employees don’t have to travel all over the world and can do their work from one central location.

Logistics

The last and biggest part of F1’s carbon footprint is the logistics. This means the transportation of all the cars and equipment from race to race, minus the people. In the 2022 season, around 2000 tons of freight are transported all across the world. In fact, a lot of the non-essential materials that need to be at each race are sent early on ships to save energy. But the critical components, like the car, are flown on Boeing 747 jets between the overseas races. That requires a lot of fuel, which compounded to being almost 50% of all of F1’s emissions in 2022. That’s more than 100,000 tons of carbon emissions. To combat this, F1 has started using biofuel powered trucks to transport freight between European races and streamlining the schedule to not have as many fly away races. But, as F1 continues to expand, it is hard to see how they will improve emissions in the logistics sector.

Compared to Other Sports

Looking at other sports, F1 is doing a pretty poor job. Since the sport travels all over the world, it’s hard to find any close competitors. In the United States in 2018, the five major leagues (NFL, MLS, MLB, NBA, and NHL) combined to produce around 115,000 tons of carbon emissions. That’s not even half of F1’s emissions. Across the pond, the English Premier League emitted about 70,000 tons of carbon. Most other sports are specks compared to Formula 1.

The Future for F1

As already discussed, F1 is working to decrease its carbon emissions and make the sport more sustainable. However, it is starting from such a high point that it may take decades to reduce its emissions enough. And, after adding 2 new races for the 2022 season, carbon emissions actually increased! But, the sport is trying. It’s consolidating races in relatively close locations, transitioning to cleaner fuel, reducing the number of people traveling, and using clean energy in powering operations. I hope, and all fans of F1 hope, that the sport can continue to exist as it is while transitioning to a cleaner future.