CO₂ Study: How Climate-Friendly Are Golf Courses?
Just how environmentally friendly is a golf course, really? So far, there is no simple answer to this question. There is a lack of globally comparable methods for reliably measuring both CO₂ sequestration in the soil and emissions resulting from the maintenance and management of golf courses.
This is where the international research initiative ITRI comes in, sponsored by STERF, The R&A, and the USGA. Robert Kempster, a scientist at the Norwegian research institute NIBIO, is leading the research efforts as part of the “Pathways to a Climate-Positive Future for Golf” project. The goal is to develop a globally applicable methodology for determining the CO₂ content of golf course soils and the emissions resulting from their management. The results could, for the first time, provide a reliable basis for identifying where golf courses actually store CO₂, where emissions occur—and how these can be specifically reduced.
In this interview, Robert Kempster explains why this data set is crucial for the future of golf and what questions research needs to answer.
The world is experiencing a summer marked by extreme heat waves, droughts, and wildfires. The word “resilience” is on everyone’s lips. How important is it to recognize that the golf industry must reduce its emissions?
Kempster: If golf clubs want to be resilient, it’s almost like fighting the tide. You’re trying to fight the problems as they come, but you’re not targeting the underlying cause. Often people take each problem in isolation, just thinking like, “Oh well, okay, there’s less water, how do we cope with that?” or “It’s hotter, how do we cope with that? There’s more disease,” trying to tackle problems problem by problem. It’s like trying to carry on regardless of the challenges, instead of tackling climate change now. That is tricky, because it will take a long time before we see the benefits.
What is your impression when you work with golf clubs? How much awareness is there about the overall issue of CO₂?
Kempster: I’m working with golf courses which are interested enough in this topic to be willing to contribute to our project. I get the sense that golf courses have a lot of pride in their course and they do want to do the right thing.
The topic they seem to understand better is biodiversity. But advice and guidance on what actions can be taken to address climate change, reduce emissions, or improving sequestration is less clear. I think the willingness is there to make changes, but maybe it’s a lack of advice or understanding of what would make the difference.
I think it’s our job to do this research and help guide them, because some of the suggestions we make don’t actually require anything more of the golf courses—sometimes they require less. The project aims to provide a holistic view of golf course emission balances—both sequestration and emissions—and to work out where those emissions are coming from.
Which buildings and their energy consumption are included?
Kempster: It’s just the maintenance buildings and the pump house.
How difficult was it to agree on this study setup?
Kempster: We are a sports turf research group here at NIBIO Landvik, so we’re always more concerned with the sports turf element. You can draw a lot of carbon learnings from a wide variety of scientific literature for things like the clubhouse or wilder areas, but the big gap really is sports turf maintenance. There’s really not much that’s been done on turf areas like golf courses—especially not at this global scale.
The data come from completely different climate zones. Are courses then still comparable?
Kempster: We’re trying to use the differences from region to region to help us understand the problem from a global view. We know from the theory of carbon accumulation in the soil what should make a difference in terms of the climate. It’s all driven by grass growth and by soil microbial activity. If you have more temperature and more precipitation, then you get more grass growth and so more carbon capture through photosynthesis. But it’s a balance as if the grass grows more, you have to mow it leading to increased maintenance emissions. At the same time, warmer and wetter conditions also increase microbial decomposition, which releases carbon back into the atmosphere. So the amount of carbon stored in the soil depends on the balance between these processes, how much carbon enters the soil and how quickly it is broken down. By studying courses across different climates, we can better understand how that balance changes around the world.
Also, maintenance activities play an important role, the growing season in Australia is basically all year, whereas the growing season in northern Sweden is much tighter. It’s interesting to see how that impacts emissions. The advice we give to certain regions may be different from others because of the challenges each one faces.
Is there at all a lot of carbon sequestration in grass?
Kempster: There is, but it happens quite early on. A study of freshly laid turf shows the highest rate of carbon sequestration within the first few years. Those rates decline over time, so you can’t apply that same rate indefinitely; it’s not a linear relationship with age. A lot of work has been done on natural grasslands, which sequester a lot of carbon, but we don’t know how similar that is in a managed grassland.
Do you also take different grasses into account?
Kempster: We’re asking the golf courses what grass types they are using, so that can be checked. We can do comparisons and group courses by the grass types they’re using. It will likely vary widely across the different sites. If you take Bermuda, it typically requires less irrigation, which can reduce emissions for water management. Growth rates will differ, rooting depths will differ, which affects soil carbon, and the residues within those roots are likely to differ, which affects the breakdown of plant material.
Which role does irrigation play? Pumps need a lot of energy, which influences emissions. And the irrigation, for example on courses in Arizona, is completely different from Sweden.
Kempster: Exactly. There are a few relevant things there. The electricity source that the pump house is running on—if it’s running in Scandinavia, that electricity might be coming from renewable sources, hydropower, etc. We are taking that into account with the emissions factors we are using. Electricity to use a pump house in Sweden compared to electricity in Japan or America will give you a completely different output, depending on how that electricity is generated.
Then let’s talk about the water source itself: A lot of courses in Sweden have an open water source, and they can pump it directly from the lake or river. Whereas in other places it could be coming from mains water, and you’re using treated, clean water. Or other regions it could be mainly recycled water. That influences the footprint and so we will also consider this.
Isn’t the construction of the whole golf course an important part of the whole carbon reporting? Doesn’t it make a difference if the course is built in a natural site of dunes, if forests are removed or if the course is built on former agricultural land?
Kempster: I completely agree. I’m focusing on ongoing emissions in the study and trying to improve that, but we’re missing a substantial amount of overall embedded carbon emissions from construction of the golf course. There is therefore a large initial carbon debt. Once we have been able to calculate the carbon sequestration rates, it would be interesting to know how long it takes to break even.
With carbon sequestration, it depends on the previous land use. So, if you go from a forest to a golf course, you will be losing carbon out of the soil. But if you go from agriculture to a golf course, then you’ll probably be gaining carbon. Depending on the previous land use, that clearly changes whether a course has a positive impact or a negative impact. But this isn’t part of my ongoing project, though it could perhaps be an important future project.
The problem with scientific results is often that they aren’t communicated enough. How much can your study influence the attitude of the golf industry towards carbon emissions?
Kempster: That’s what I find rewarding about working for NIBIO and this International Turfgrass Research Initiative (ITRI) project “Pathways to a climate-positive future for golf” funded by STERF, the USGA and the R&A — they put a heavy emphasis on writing articles that will be read by actual practitioners, not just scientific papers. The aim is to give golf courses actionable advice on how they can try to reduce their emissions.
Images: Hotel Die Krone 1280, GC Schloss Langenstein