Will the golf industry make a real contribution to reducing global CO₂ emissions and achieving the climate targets set by UN Sports for Climate Action, for example? This assumes that the sports industry will strive for climate neutrality by 2040.
A positive answer to this question seems doubtful when you consider a survey recently published by the Global Sustainable Sport organization. Sports organizations from 17 sports and 22 countries answered questions about projects and measures to reduce CO₂ emissions. Several international golf organizations were also among the participants. A special evaluation was not carried out for the golf industry alone, but with regard to the entire sports industry, Mike Laflin, CEO of Global Sustainable Sports, summarized the sobering results as follows:
“This survey shows that many people in sport understand the urgent need to address climate change. Targets have been set in many cases and people have committed to measuring and reducing. But the outcomes and methods are very mixed and confused. Without clear leadership, dedicated funding and credible measurement, especially around Scope 3 and spectator travel, the sports industry is going to struggle to make a genuine contribution to reducing GHG emissions and meeting the 2030 and 2040 targets. ”
This assessment is exciting in that the European Golf Association announced a new sustainability strategy and a turfgrass roadmap less than two weeks later, although these still have to be finalized by the General Assembly and will not be published until the end of the year. The EGA’s first announcement contained relatively vaguely formulated goals for both documents:
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Sustainability Strategy – Objectives
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Enhance golf’s contribution to priority societal issues by reducing resource use, emissions, and environmental impacts, while strengthening the sport’s positive role for nature, climate, and communities.
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Improve golf’s position and profile across Europe by harmonising commitments and actions and representing the sport effectively in EU discussions.
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Play a leading role in global sustainability efforts by enabling European golf to step forward confidently as a leader within international golf and across sport more widely
Turfgrass Roadmap – Objectives
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Provide a prioritised long-term plan that will help guide collective action to ensure playability of European golf courses in the future
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Guide further research, education, use of technology, data collation and application of Integrated Turf Management (ITM) principles and practices
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Help ensure that golf’s approach to turfgrass management evolves with regulation and other potential resource restrictions
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At this point, it is striking that the EGA does not formulate any concrete climate targets, at least in this first announcement, nor does it make any statements on emissions reporting, not to mention a commitment to a concrete reduction in greenhouse gases. This applies above all to the EGA as the European umbrella organisation itself, which hosts numerous high-ranking amateur tournaments every year.
Golf associations or organisations that have formulated climate targets to date are rare.
- In June 2024, the Danish Golf Union formulated the vision of becoming a climate-neutral golf region by 2050.
- Swiss Golf has formulated the intention to achieve the net-zero target by 2035.
- In 2022, the DP World Tour was the first professional tour to commit to reducing its emissions by 50 % by 2030 and becoming carbon-neutral by 2040.
- In its 2023 sustainability strategy, LIV Golf stated that it wanted to achieve the net-zero target by 2040.
In view of the 49 national associations that are members of the EGA and that have developed their new sustainability strategy in various working groups in recent years, a joint commitment to a specific contribution by the golf industry to reducing CO₂ emissions was apparently not possible.
