The future of winter sports is under threat from the very companies that sponsor it, argues a brand new report from Badvertising and think-tank, New Weather Sweden.
The report, titled ‘The Snow Thieves – How High-Carbon Sponsors are Melting Winter Sports’, identifies a minimum of 107 high carbon sponsorship deals within winter sports, despite its increasing vulnerability to climate change and rising global temperatures.
The report also highlights the irony that the combined emissions of two of the sponsors of Sweden’s world-famous Vasaloppet – the London Marathon of ski races – car manufacturer Volvo and energy firm Preem, account for the loss of 210 square kilometres of snow cover – or the area of snow equivalent to 233 Vasaloppet ski races.
The other main findings from the report are:
Due to global heating linked to greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 1970, each year the snow cover in the northern hemisphere shrinks by an additional estimated 90,600 square kilometres, over one fifth the size of Sweden and over one third the size of Great Britain.
Emissions from two sponsors of the ski world’s version of the London Marathon, Sweden’s famous Vasaloppet ski race, account for the loss of 210 square kilometres of snow cover per year, equivalent to 233 times the snow area used by the race
Winter sports are increasingly vulnerable to rising global temperatures and other impacts of climate change, with many European ski resorts facing closures and disruptions this winter.
International sporting events are coming under scrutiny over sponsorship deals with polluting companies, after a series of high-profile deals ended over climate change concerns.
The full report can be found here and the press release is available here. If you’d like to share some of the social media assets relating to the report, please head over to Badvertising Twitter page.