Fossil fuel companies spend £4bn on 'sportswashing'

Fossil substance companies person invested much than £4bn successful sports sponsorship "in an effort to divert attraction from their domiciled successful fuelling nan ambiance situation and harming quality health”, according to a caller report.

Green think-tank New Weather Institute (NWI) analysed much than 200 progressive deals, claiming “sport is progressively 1 of nan areas lipid and state companies are utilizing to greenwash their reputation".

Its report, ‘Dirty Money - really fossil substance sponsors are polluting sport’, recovered that shot had nan astir partnerships pinch nan power and petrochemical manufacture (58), followed by motorsports (39), rugby national (17), and play (15).

Team GB gold-medal winning Olympic rower Imogen Grant says it shows athletics is “being utilized to amended nan cognition of companies that are doing unspeakable things to our environment, straight impacting nan sports they are sponsoring".

"A batch of that is coming from monolithic state-owned fossil substance sponsors but it's not a woody athletics tin judge for overmuch longer," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

NWI says Saudi Arabia's nationalist lipid elephantine Aramco was nan biggest fossil substance sponsor of sport, paying almost £1bn crossed 10 progressive sponsorships, followed by petrochemical companies Ineos (£588m), Shell £355m) and TotalEnergies (£257m).

Earlier this twelvemonth Aramco announced a business pinch world shot governing assemblage Fifa. It is besides a awesome sponsor of Formula 1 and has a world woody pinch nan International Cricket Council, nan sport's world governing body. It declined to comment.

Ineos, which has invested successful a scope of sports teams, besides declined to comment, though its president Sir Jim Ratcliffe has antecedently denied allegations of 'sportswashing' by campaigners.

TotalEnergies - whose sponsorship of nan 2023 Rugby World Cup was criticised by Greenpeace - has been contacted for comment.

It has antecedently said: "Our sports sponsorship represents a tremendous open-air laboratory wherever TotalEnergies tin proceedings nan caller solutions that it has pioneered to support and guideline its customers and partners towards nan mobility of tomorrow's world and c neutrality."

Shell, which sparked contention by sponsoring British Cycling successful 2022, said it has "invested £4.2bn successful low-carbon solutions past year, which was 23% of its superior spending".

It added: "This is to support nan improvement of low-carbon power solutions including e-mobility, low-carbon fuels, renewable power, hydrogen, and c seizure and storage."

NWI is calling connected sports organisations and governing bodies to present "tobacco-style bans connected sponsorship from fossil substance companies, and actively activity and promote much sustainable sources of funding".

Andrew Simms, co-director of NWI, said: "Oil companies who are delaying ambiance action and pouring much substance connected nan occurrence of world heating, are utilizing large tobacco's aged playbook and trying to walk themselves disconnected arsenic patrons of sport.

"But aerial contamination from fossil fuels and nan utmost upwind of a warming world frighten nan very early of athletes, fans and events ranging from nan Winter Olympics to World Cups.

"If athletics is to person a early it needs to cleanable itself of soiled money from large polluters and extremity promoting its ain destruction."