Sport doesn’t need to be an advert for fossil fuel interests. If you want to kick polluters out of football, sign the Fossil Free Declaration as a concerned fan, and share it with your favourite athletes and sports teams ✍️⚽️.

VW - like other major car companies - is transitioning to fully electric cars. But this is at a glacial pace. By promoting their EV models across the sports we love, the company is able to appear as a green leader rather than climate staller.

VW sponsors over fifty clubs at all levels, including grassroots football - a level of the sport already impacted by climate breakdown. UK gov research found that extreme weather now costs grassroots sport £320m every year - and that’s in the UK alone. ⛈️.

Beyond greenwashing, a 2023 report by Greenpeace Asia found that Volkswagen among other car companies had not disclosed emissions from their steel supply chains. 🏭. If car steel production were a country, they would emit about the same as Australia. 🤨.

But if you were to look at VW's ads, you would think the exact opposite. Across their ad campaigns, the car company consistently presents itself as a leader in the energy transition for passenger transport. 🤥

Volkswagen is the second largest car manufacturer in the world. Across Greenpeace reports ranking auto companies, VW has consistently over promised and underdelivered. The vast majority of its fleet (~90%) are still powered by fossil fuels. 🚗💨.

Spanish national football league La Liga and its female counterpart, Liga F, have named Volkswagen as a sponsor. In the wake of deadly wildfires across Spain, a deal with a major fossil fuelled car company amounts to pouring petrol on the flames. 🧵 1/7.

RT @cooldownnetwork: In a new piece for Cycling Weekly, former ITV broadcaster Matt Rendell calls out sportswashing in cycling and points f….

Grassroots clubs are the beating heart of sport, serving as a talent pipeline and a cultural anchor for communities. Encourage your local club to sign the Fossil Free Declaration and join the call for a ban on polluting sponsors in sport. ✍️👇.

And yet – elite sport continues to promote the very industries driving climate breakdown and harming the viability of grassroots sport. From oil companies sponsoring cycling to airlines on football shirts, sportswashing is everywhere in sport. 📺💨.

Unable to meet the financial demands of climate breakdown, access to grassroots sport will be significantly impacted across the UK. Only those with the most resources will survive - meaning that sport risks becoming a pastime for the elite.

And to put these figures into perspective, the report bluntly warns: “Certain sports might not survive.”. For young people especially, that means fewer opportunities to play, be active, and stay healthy.

📉 And, left unaddressed, things are only going to get worse. Under central projections, costs could rise by another £95–190m a year as climate breakdown accelerates. One model suggests current impacts might actually be as high as £835m annually – with much higher costs ahead.

🌧️⚽ The report finds extreme weather already costs grassroots sport in the UK £320m every year. That’s pitches flooded, matches cancelled, and community facilities damaged. The FA has estimated that 100,000 grassroots football games are cancelled annually in the UK.

A new UK Government–commissioned report warns climate breakdown is wreaking havoc on community sport – forcing clubs to close, making sport less accessible, and even wiping some sports out completely. Here’s what you need to know. 🧵. Full analysis:

Partnering with high-level emitters flies in the face of the WRWC’s own environmental goals, and is putting players and fans at risk. 🔥. As a concerned fan, you can Sign the Fossil Free Declaration to demand a fossil fuel ad ban in sport. ✍️.

Emirates is also creeping into the sport. Owned by petrostate UAE, the company is one of the largest airline polluters. ✈️💨. Alongside its sponsorship of football teams and tennis events, Emirates now joins its fellow fossil fuel profiteers in the sportswash of rugby.

Mitsubishi’s LNG investments include plans to build an LNG terminal in Port Qasim, Pakistan, a project that will harm fishing communities as well as vital mangrove forests 🏗️. Full info 👉

Another notable addition to the event’s lineup of commercial sponsors is Mitsubishi Electric. By sponsoring the WRWC with their electric vehicle wing, Mitsubishi is doing whatever it can to distract rugby fans from their extensive Involvement in Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) projects

Rugby is already at risk from climate change: with a report from World Rugby (rugby union’s governing body) finding the game threatened by extreme heat, increased drought and flooding.