Lizzie Stannard, November 2024
For those of you who haven’t been paying much attention to the news media lately – fair enough, given that off-season training is now in full swing, transfer season is wrapping up, pre-season team camps is rapidly approaching, and winter is coming – the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference (or COP29) is currently taking place (at least, as I write this) in Baku, Azerbaijan. It’s surrounded by all sorts of controversy, stemming from the fact not much has really been done since the last UN Climate Change Conference and that the Azerbaijanis have a fairly poor human rights record as well as being a major fossil fuel exporter.
As most of riders in the professional peloton are starting to think about what they’re going to do with all of the leftover 2024 season kit – half of it still wrapped in the original plastic – and we’ve all been subject to strange and extreme weather patterns this year, I thought that COP29 is, actually, quite relevant. Despite all its shortcomings. And I wondered, why doesn’t professional cycling have some kind of collective sustainability initiative, and in fact, why isn’t climate change really factored into our industry – at all?
But apparently we do. As a rider, this is news to me and I don’t think I am any more ignorant than the average rider in the WWT or WT peloton.
The UCI has a list of objectives called the Climate Action Charter. You can read it in full here. National federations, teams and race organisers can opt to sign the Charter and interestingly, most but not all have. The Charter claims that the UCI (and signatory parties) will ‘consistently measure our climate footprint and report to internationally recognised standards by 2024 at the latest; will implement sustainable procurement; will reduce energy demand and prioritise electricity from renewable sources; will reduce waste and will prioritise low carbon transport, will raise awareness of the importance of conservation; and will factor in the effects of climate change to future plans’.
I must say I am very much looking forward to this 2024 report being released.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Sports for Climate Action 31 highlights sport as playing a key role in reaching emissions targets, in creating awareness and sharing and developing sustainable practices and tools. As a rider, there is no institutional discourse about what we are doing to reduce our environmental footprint. Zero. Nil. None. We are all still issued plastic forks and spoons for our post-race meal, and most teams I have been on have illegally dumped effluent from the team bus off the side of a road in the middle of nowhere. My carbon emissions generated by travel alone for this year are sickening and I have hardly raced due to injury.
In 2024, with a global goal of reaching Net Zero by 2050 rapidly approaching, this is a very bad thing. Given the travel required and resources consumed by the professional cycling industry, as well as the consequences suffered by athletes and race organisers due to increasingly common adverse weather conditions, I think it is absurd there isn’t a more concerted effort to implement positive change across the board. If the UCI can regulate sock height, they also can enforce limitations on carbon emissions and waste produced by teams and race organisers. Understandably, the economic model of the cycling team isn’t geared towards investment in environmentally friendly practices, and instead it is intended for making it through just one more season. And so it makes sense that inadvertently preventing investment in the sport with the introduction of strict environmental regulations across the board is not something the UCI are really interested in doing. But actually, it should be in their (self) interest after all. A publication by Green Central Banking points out that as climate change worsens, global economic losses increase and this is not good for an industry entirely reliant on the frivolous surplus of big business.
In a sport rife with sponsors looking to distract from their various pitfalls, it also begs the question – why aren’t more companies looking to ‘greenify’ their image by investing in cycling? According to a report by the consulting firm McKinsey in 2023, consumers are overwhelmingly in support of a sustainable lifestyle and moreover are willing to prioritise sustainable or environmentally friendly products to reflect this, if given the option and even if this choice is more expensive. If then, purchase intentions of consumers indicate some kind of return on sponsorship investment in cycling, then it would arguably be beneficial to maximise these returns by incorporating a push for sustainability. I’d shop at Lidl all the time if they required their cycling team to operate with the lowest carbon emissions possible in 2025.
Moreover, cycling as a mode of transport is environmentally fantastic, and given that according to the UCI’s Climate Charter we are meant to be promoting the ‘role of the bicycle in combating climate change and […] building a more sustainable future for all’, this is a greenwashing opportunity too good to miss. Particularly in women’s cycling, where we still have gaps in resource allocation and practices in comparison to the men. Yes, cycling is usually a traditional and reactive sport. But it doesn’t have to be, and so then, because women’s cycling is not men’s cycling, I would ask that, why not plug these gaps with sustainability in mind?
It is ridiculous to expect that the impetus for change should be purely individualistic. Expecting riders to spend their own income on carbon-offsets is unrealistic and also ineffective. It is proven that carbon credits do not necessarily represent real world carbon reductions (for more information on this there is an excellent 2023 investigation into rainforest offset credits by the Guardian), and anyway, it would be cheaper to send all riders to races via train than it would be to tack on phantom carbon offsets to Fast Track RyanAir tickets. If everyone has to travel by train, the performance losses accrued during longer travel time will more or less be spread evenly over the playing field.
It would be far too logical to consider completely revamping the race calendar so as to minimise travel to and from races – the season could start in Spain and move through Europe in a big lap as opposed to popping from Belgium to Italy and back twice a week. This isn’t a new idea. The Skoda Tour of Luxembourg has employed a third party to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions created by the event. I would recommend taking a look if you have the time [see here] – it’s an eye-opening read. The report finds that “over 70% of the total event emissions were attributed to team transportation alone”, and so by considering ways in which we could streamline the logistics side of our sport, we would be well positioned to tick off a few of the UCI’s climate ‘imperatives’. Not only would it be environmentally beneficial, it would, I presume, end up being more economically efficient.
Considering most car brands now purport EVs, why not mandate that all cars used by teams in the WWT must be electric by the end of 2025? Why not prioritise using drone footage for broadcasting? Why not limit the sponsor caravans during races – or abolish them entirely? No one needs pens made in China thrown at them from a Peugeot spilling out black fumes. Why not allow the Women’s WorldTour the opportunity to implement these changes first? With fewer riders, a smaller calendar, and a big appetite for progress, the WWT would be the perfect subject for this sort of positive change. If women’s cycling was founded upon a desire for equal rights and for progression, then we shouldn’t just stop when we might finally get equal prize-money because the changes we will be making for the environment will be for the benefit of the sport as a whole.
I suspect introducing climate imperatives into the sport would be akin to the development of disc brakes in the peloton. Once considered an aesthetic affront, and yet now, unthinkable not to have them. Yes there will always be a few purists, but considering we would be implementing all of this with regard to our future selves and generations down the track, I think it is a worthy sacrifice.
Articles or working papers I have referred to or would suggest taking a look at can be found below.
The UCI Climate Charter! All signatories to the charter are listed under their respectives regions at the bottom of the web page.
‘Consumers care about sustainability—and back it up with their wallets’. Published via McKinsey & Company here.
‘Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest certifier are worthless, analysis shows’. The Guardian. Link here.
Also this great piece on CyclingNews.
The Skoda Tour of Luxembourg report can be found here.
And this report from Green Central Banking.
See also this paper by Kim, Li, & Wu called ‘Carbon Offsets: Decarbonization or Transition-Washing?’
And I would recommend keeping an eye on COP29 via some kind of news media like the Conversation – see here.
