F1® is halfway to halving its emissions by 2030

Back in 2019, F1® announced a goal to be “Net Zero” by 2030. Were they going to eliminate all, or almost all of their emissions? No, of course not. Come on, don’t be ridiculous. What F1® meant by “Net Zero” is to reduce their emissions by half and then offset the rest with carbon credits.

Phew, that makes so much more sense.

Even with this glaring caveat, the target is still ambitious in its scope. Naturally, it covers the most conspicuous emission source in this sport: cars burning almost 40 litres of fuel per 100km (equivalent to 6 mpg) running in circles. But more importantly, the target also covers the less visible emissions from F1® and team factories and facilities, on-site operations on each race weekend, and most significantly, moving hundreds of tonnes of equipment and thousands of employees to and from 24 races across 5 continents.¹

Last month, FI® provided an update on their progress so far:

Formula 1 is firmly on track to achieve its target of becoming Net Zero by 2030, having delivered a 26% reduction in its carbon emissions by the end of 2024 compared to its 2018 baseline.

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At the end of the 2024 season, the carbon footprint for the sport stands at 168,720 tCO₂e (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) – down from 228,793 tCO₂e in 2018.

The press release lists a whole range of changes F1® made to achieve this. After digging into the details in the accompanying report, two trends are clear:

First, the vast majority of the reductions are achieved through boring (and effective) use of renewable electricity in buildings. Factories and facilities emissions were slashed by more than half. It’s cheap, quick, and scalable.

Second, all the efforts F1® put into logistics and travel made very little difference. Remote broadcasting, changing the race schedule to reduce intercontinental trips, and using biofuel trucks and efficient cargo planes reduced the combined travel and logistics emissions by only 4% since 2018. The only reason F1® can claim a more significant reduction in its most significant emission sources is because of sustainable aviation fuel (fancy biofuel) certificates. They paid airlines and logistics companies for the right to say they used the lower-carbon biofuels that were actually used by others. It’s basically fancier carbon credits.

We know decarbonising aviation is hard, even for a business as rich and innovative as F1®. But you can always buy carbon credits for the half of the emissions you promised to reduce, before you had to buy carbon credits for the other half you plan to offset.