F1, major events shouldn’t ignore attendees’ travel emissions

SINGAPORE will “continue to fine-tune” how it manages the greenhouse gas emissions of the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (Mice) industry, including the recently concluded Formula One (F1) Grand Prix in the city centre, Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng told Parliament last week.

As a first step, the country might want to get event organisers to count and report on the end-to-end emissions generated by attendees. This is especially important for major international events, for which many participants fly into Singapore.

A look at the sustainability report of Singapore GP, which organises the Singapore F1 race, shows a disclosure gap when it comes to the emissions generated by spectators.

In fact, the greenhouse gas emissions reported by Singapore GP are so narrowly scoped they offer very little useful information about the carbon footprint of the race in Singapore. Disclosed emissions are restricted to the “patron experience zones” at the race location, which refers to the areas that contain spectators and their service providers. In other words, all the freight, logistics and travel by Formula 1 and teams are not captured in the report.

The report also does not appear to include the travel-related emissions from spectators. Singapore GP’s Scope 3 emissions – which are broadly defined as value chain emissions outside of operations and electricity consumption for which the company is responsible – contain a transport section attributed to “vehicles”, “ferry” and “helicopter”. Given that these account for less than 0.6 per cent of Singapore GP’s total emissions, however, it is highly unlikely these measure the carbon footprint of the thousands of spectators who fly into Singapore to watch the race.

It should be noted that TUV SUD PSB verified the accuracy of Singapore GP’s emissions report, so there is no suggestion of inaccurate reporting. The question is whether the emissions report would have been more meaningful and useful if spectators’ travel emissions were included. Two principles under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol are pertinent here: relevance and completeness. Emissions from spectators’ flights, especially, are a large enough portion of total emissions that one could argue that they should be material and, hence, relevant.

A back-of-the-napkin estimate shows that the excluded spectators’ travel emissions could be more than 18 times as much as what Singapore GP reported for its 2022 emissions. Official numbers place the number of foreign attendees for the 2022 race at 148,000, or 49 per cent of the 302,000 spectators. Tourism statistics show that the largest sources of tourists in Singapore in September 2022, when the race took place, were Indonesia, India, Australia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Assuming that the foreign visitor profile isn’t too far from the total for that month, we arrive at an average one-way travel distance of about 3,200 km per foreign visitor, based on the average distance between the major airports in Singapore and the top visitors’ countries. Feed those into the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s carbon emissions calculator to get 0.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) per person round-trip. Multiplying that by the 148,000 foreign spectators gives total spectator travel emissions of about 44,000 tCO2e. The total emissions reported by Singapore GP for 2022, which excludes spectator travel emissions, was just 2,372 tCO2e.

Net Zero Carbon Events (NZCE), a Mice industry initiative to tackle climate change, stated in its Roadmap: “The emissions generated by the travel of attendees to events are significant and in almost all cases the largest contributor to an event’s carbon footprint.”

NZCE also addressed the exclusion of spectators’ travel emissions by event organisers. While the organisation recommended that event organisers measure and report attendees’ travel emissions, it acknowledged that those emissions may be omitted because of a “perceived low level of influence” that the organisers have over those emissions.

The explanation for excluding spectators’ travel emissions is that the event organiser might have little influence over how spectators get to the event. However, that might be too strict an interpretation of what constitutes influence. After all, many of the spectators would not make the trip to Singapore if not for the race.

It might also place too much importance on influence. Even if the Singapore GP’s level of influence over spectators’ travel emissions is not that strong, those emissions are understood to form such a large part of the greenhouse gases produced as a result of the F1 race that not accounting for them hinders a proper understanding of the event’s impact.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, to which Singapore GP adheres, provides this guidance on reporting downstream transportation and distribution under an entity’s Scope 3 emissions: “Companies may include emissions from customers travelling to retail stores in this category, which can be significant for companies that own or operate retail facilities.”

While the protocol refers specifically to retail stores, the same principle should apply to event organisers.

Unfortunately, Singapore GP is not alone. Many sporting event organisers, such as those behind the Rugby World Cup 2023, do not count spectators’ travel emissions. Some count only the final travel leg that ends at the event venue. Incidentally, final-leg reporting can seem disingenuous. Most major sporting events are so packed that public or shared transportation is often the ideal way to get there, and this allows the event organisers to claim they’re doing wonders by encouraging the use of shared transportation. No mention of how these spectators got to their hotels or the country in the first place.

The reluctance is understandable. Measuring emissions brings with it the obligation to do something about it. Everybody wants to show they’re lowering emissions, and one way to get a head start is to not acknowledge that the emissions even belong to you.

The good news is that pushback is happening in some corners. The US Environmental Protection Agency has offered guidelines that recommend reporting travel emissions for events. The 2024 Paris Olympics has declared that it is accounting for the indirect impact of the Games, including travel by spectators. NZCE has said that it will review its stance on inclusion of spectators’ travel emissions.

“This will be reviewed in two years’ time. In the meantime, event organisers wishing to get ahead of the game can choose to include attendee travel and accommodation emissions in their Scope 3 from now and develop their net-zero pathway accordingly. Events wishing to certify as carbon neutral can do so by measuring the full carbon footprint of the event, including attendee travel and accommodation, and offsetting accordingly.”

NZCE might have hit the nail on the head. Regardless of whether the current rules allow an event organiser such as Singapore GP to exclude spectators’ travel emissions, the regulatory trajectory seems to be headed towards inclusion. Event organisers could avoid that obligation for as long as possible, but that raises the risk that they’ll be caught unprepared when the rules change.