European Tour Group introduces CO2 tracker for professionals

Golf professionals on one of the European Tour Group‘s tours will be able to determine and offset their carbon footprint in the 2025 season using a carbon tracker. With the help of a specially programmed platform, it is now possible for the first time in golf to at least partially tackle the problem of golf professionals’ extremely high mobility and associated carbon footprint.
In April, the European Tour Group published a CO₂ report in which mobility and travel were identified as the biggest source of CO₂ at 80.72%. Player travel activities accounted for 35% of emissions. Back in May, the European Tour Group introduced a program that enabled fans of DP World Tour events to offset the carbon footprint of their travel to the golf tournament.

Aiming for carbon neutrality by 2040

As part of its Green Drive program, the European Tour Group aims to reduce its emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and completely by 2040. To this end, the carbon footprint of all Rolex events is now being determined. The results of individual tournaments have not yet been published. According to international standards, however, the mobility factor should be included to achieve some credibility in reporting. The issue of mobility affects almost all sporting events worldwide.

Professional golfers have also been in the spotlight in recent years because the top players, in particular, often use private aircraft. Rory McIlroy is one of these players, but he began offsetting the emissions generated four years ago through projects in line with the Gold Standard. In 2021, he paid 150,000 pounds at the end of the season. “As golfers we have the opportunity to travel all over the world doing the job we love, but I do have a conscience about the impact that can have on the environment, and that’s why I began taking steps a few years ago to offset my carbon footprint and make my travel neutral.”
German golfer Marcel Siem has also been measuring his carbon footprint as a professional golfer for several years, working with AQ GreenTeC, an emissions’ management service provider.
In 2022, he caused a stir at tournaments by wearing clothing with the “I Play Carbon Neutral” label. Siem now also has an overview of his travelling activities: He flies around 130,000 miles a year.

Target rate of 90 percent

The European Tour Group aims for a participation rate of 90 per cent of players on the various tours. In doing so, it can also draw on initial experiences from the tennis sector, where the ATP Tour published a carbon tracker for the first time in June 2023. Over 120 players have already started recording their data in the app, including prominent athletes such as Dominic Thiem, Andrey Rublev and Cameron Norrie. However, specific data on the respective CO₂ footprint has not been published.
There is a general consensus within the sports scene that the issue of mobility and its impact on the carbon footprint cannot be resolved entirely, as travel is unavoidable for athletes. However, the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) points out in its Sports for Climate Action Framework that avoiding emissions is much more effective than offsetting them and must be the top priority.
This means, for example, that optimising tournament calendars, which also align the timing of events in a region, is of great importance. The European Tour Group succeeds in doing this at the start of the season with tournaments in the Arab region. Ultimately, the problem of the high use of private aircraft in professional game can only be solved by changing the behaviour of the players themselves.