Fan travel emissions
Long read: Football has a climate problem it isn’t targeting
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Introduction
Fan travel - the emissions produced by millions of people getting to and from matches - is typically the largest source of emissions in the sport. For most clubs it accounts for more than half their total footprint. Yet in clubs’ and governing bodies’ climate commitments it is mostly excluded, unaddressed, or left ambiguous - including by some of the biggest names. These are among football’s least known but most consequential climate choices.
The approach has surface plausibility: clubs have limited control over how fans travel, so fan travel shouldn’t sit inside their targets. But scratch the surface and the arguments weaken. The methodology most commonly cited as justification addresses reporting, not targeting - and on fan travel it specifically recommends inclusion in order to influence and drive reductions. The control argument is also weaker than it first looks.
Targets drive priorities, resources and actions. When fan travel sits outside targets, consequences flow. Decisions that could decrease emissions are not incentivised, and decisions that increase them carry no internal climate cost. Engagement, not outcomes, can become the target.
These are not purely accounting judgements. They are choices about what football is prepared to be held accountable for. This exclusion is becoming increasingly institutionalised - but the case is not settled. Some do include fan travel in their targets. At least three key processes will reach decision points in the next two years - each with the potential to clarify or entrench the ambiguities this piece examines.
This piece assumes a basic knowledge of emissions scopes and categories - see this introduction (p.21) for more on them. It is a contribution to a live methodological debate, not a final verdict. Responses identifying errors in this piece or offering alternative readings are welcome.
Section 1 documents the pattern across English football and beyond. Section 2 examines what the cited frameworks say. Section 3 tests the control and influence arguments. Section 4 sets out consequences and asks.
SECTION 1 - Football’s targeting gap
Two different terms matter throughout: reporting - which is the counting of emissions; and targeting - which is committing to reduce them. Football lags behind the wider business community in setting net-zero targets. Those clubs and governing bodies that have made pledges represent a real progressive minority within the sport - and their efforts deserve recognition. At the same time, even among them, few go beyond their headline commitment in providing granular numbers, meaning there is only a small set to examine in detail. Among those, the picture is one of considerable ambiguity and diversity in approaches.
The FA reports fan travel only for FA-owned Wembley events, classifying all other fan travel as 'not measured.' It excludes what it does report from its 50% reduction target, citing limited control and measurement difficulty. This likely excludes from both measurement and targeting UEFA and FIFA games at Wembley, England fans travelling to away internationals, and matches at other English stadiums.
Arsenal is the only football club globally with SBTi-validated targets1. Its climate disclosure, citing SBTi and UEFA guidance, states that fan travel to ‘our matches’ has been excluded from targets and categorised as Outside of Scope. What ‘our matches’ covers is unstated, though emissions from Arsenal fans travelling to away matches appear to remain in Scope 3 Category 9 (known as ‘downstream transportation and distribution’) and by implication within Arsenal’s Scope 3 target boundary.
Tottenham Hotspur previously included fan travel within its Scope 3 target boundary. It has since removed it, restating its baseline accordingly, citing UEFA guidance that spectator mobility is out of scope for clubs though it should still be reported. Spurs’ statement specifically references home games; the treatment of away fan travel is left unclear. Fan travel now sits in a separate ‘Additional Scope 3 emissions’ category, outside the club’s targets and Net Zero trajectory. In effect, North London rivals Arsenal and Spurs are using the same UEFA guidance and arriving at different approaches.
Liverpool’s reporting is also unclear. Its sustainability report shows spectator travel on an uncategorised separate line from the three standard scope categories, without stating whether it is included in the baseline against which its 50% emissions reduction by 2030 target is tracked - a question that may reflect unclear public disclosure as much as an unclear internal position.
Not all clubs with net-zero targets have excluded fan travel. Manchester City includes it within its target boundary, though a planned baseline reset in 2026 means the current position may not be settled2. Wolves’ commitment to net zero explicitly includes fan travel within its target. In Germany, Borussia Mönchengladbach also includes fan travel in its target. VfL Wolfsburg includes fan travel in its carbon footprint and has a reduction target, but does not clearly state that fan travel is part of it. Other clubs currently without net-zero targets do report fan travel in Scope 3 - Juventus in Category 11 (Use of Sold Products), Brentford in Category 9.
Elsewhere, the DFL’s licensing framework requires clubs to collect greenhouse gas emissions data, set a reduction target, and actively support sustainable fan mobility - but is silent on whether fan travel should be included in reduction targets. Other governing bodies are taking a variety of approaches. UEFA’s 2026 Strategy Upgrade and its Carbon Reduction Plan are both silent on whether spectator travel sits within or outside UEFA's own 50% reduction target. FIFA included fan travel in its men’s World Cup 2022 greenhouse gas report but excluded it from its women’s World Cup 2023 report and has not published full and updated estimates for its upcoming tournaments. The Premier League also organises the overseas Premier League Summer Series, though it is not clear whether the fan travel consequences should be accounted for by the Premier League or by clubs.
The approach to both reporting and targeting of fan travel emissions varies, but among those who have made an explicit targeting decision, exclusion is more common than inclusion. What gets measured also varies significantly - sometimes between consecutive reports from the same organisation. Understanding why requires examining the frameworks these decisions are made under.
SECTION 2 - What the frameworks say
The decisions documented above share a common feature: each is taken by reference to external frameworks or methodologies. Testing whether they say what they are claimed to say is where the analysis turns next.
The GHG Protocol and the unresolved classification question
The GHG Protocol Corporate Standard underpins every other framework in this section. It has fifteen Scope 3 categories. Football organisations have most commonly sought to fit fan travel into Category 9 (downstream transportation and distribution), and occasionally Category 6 (business travel) or Category 11 (use of sold products). None of these categories was designed with spectator travel in mind - Category 9 mentions customer travel to retail stores as an optional item, the only sector the standard references3. UEFA’s own methodology, examined below, aims to address this gap.
Where customer travel to consume services - such as attending a sporting event - should sit was raised in the GHG Protocol’s Technical Working Group in September 2025. The Secretariat suggested optional inclusion in Category 9; a member immediately challenged this, noting that Category 9 is defined around transport of products, not customers travelling to consume services. No resolution was adopted. The public consultation expected in the second half of 2026 is an opportunity to address it. The pattern is not confined to football - the same unresolved gap in standard-setting architecture runs across sectors.
The UEFA Calculator Methodology
UEFA’s Carbon Footprint Calculator Methodology is now reportedly used by 176 organisations4, and is built on the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard.
The calculator methodology states that fan travel doesn’t fit standard categories - ‘as it is not under organisation control’ - and presents two options for handling it: inclusion within Scope 3 under an event-related “other” category, or placement entirely outside all three scopes. The document’s routing language points in different directions to these two options, and the varied practice across clubs using it reflects that5.
Chapter 5 states that even under the Out of Scope option, inclusion in reporting is advisable “in order to influence and drive emission reduction efforts,” and that fan travel emissions are “likely material.” In its own events reporting, UEFA Euro 2024 and Women’s Euro 2025 explicitly included spectator travel - though its seasonal Respect Report presents event emissions as a single aggregate figure with no fan travel breakdown.
Importantly, the methodology makes no target-setting recommendation whatsoever. Clubs and governing bodies citing it as recommending exclusion from targets are extending it to a decision it does not address.
The Race to Zero gap
Most clubs and governing bodies discussed here are signatories to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework (UNS4CA), operating within the UN-backed Race to Zero campaign. Race to Zero’s Interpretation Guide states that net zero targets shall cover on average 90% of emissions including material Scope 3, and that any exclusion above that threshold should be ‘motivated and explained’. For clubs where fan travel represents the majority of total emissions, exclusion puts them above that threshold. None of the explanations reviewed for this piece meets that standard.
UNS4CA has never addressed fan travel specifically, leaving boundary decisions to signatory judgement - its silence is a mechanism through which clubs can avoid the coverage expectation. The IOC explicitly includes spectator travel in Paris 2024’s reduction target under the same framework; the International Surfing Association excludes it. Same framework, opposite decisions, both claiming alignment. Several clubs signed up to UNS4CA publish nothing on their emissions beyond what company law requires - for those clubs, the framework produces a target commitment with no disclosure to underpin it.
Think Beyond
Think Beyond, a sports sustainability consultancy, published a Carbon Methodology for Sport in June 2025. It provides an analysis that directly addresses target-setting: “Including fan travel in your 50% reduction target is optional, due to limited control and difficulties in measurement.” The challenges the report identifies are real: fan travel patterns are complex and variable; primary data can be difficult to obtain; and understanding of influence over individual travel decisions is incomplete. Think Beyond’s own resolution is to propose an engagement target as a substitute for an absolute reduction commitment.
Think Beyond’s core principles - grounded in the GHG Protocol - state that organisations should “disclose and justify any exclusions clearly” and provide “clear disclosure of assumptions, methods and data sources.” The few organisations that provide any explanation have already been noted. None fully meets the standard the guidance proposes.
SBTi and the validation gap
SBTi is the leading external validation mechanism for corporate net zero targets, and the body Arsenal cites as recommending excluding fan travel from its target (no further information is available detailing this). Under its current standard, fan travel’s GHG Protocol categorisation determines whether it falls within mandatory coverage thresholds for SBTi targets - and that categorisation remains unresolved. Even where emissions fall outside the mandatory minimum, SBTi encourages organisations to set targets on them if they are significant.
The forthcoming v2.0 of the standard moves in a more inclusive direction, proposing to require companies to account for all emissions even where they fall outside the GHG Protocol’s relevance principle, and recommending targets on optional emissions where significant. Whether that accounting requirement applies to emissions classified entirely outside the standard architecture - and whether v2.0’s new assurance requirement covers them - are questions football needs answered before v2.0 is published.
What every applicable framework does establish - and what none of the exclusion justifications address - is that relevant criteria for Scope 3 inclusion are materiality and relevance. Fan travel satisfies both at every club and governing body discussed in this piece.
What the frameworks say about influence over fan travel, and what clubs and governing bodies can actually do, are two different questions - and Section 3 examines both.
SECTION 3 - Control, influence and accountability
Whether football organisations have control over fan travel, and whether they have influence over it, are distinct questions. The control argument is widely cited as a reason to exclude fan travel from targets entirely - but it rests on a category error when applied to Scope 3 inclusion. The GHG Protocol defines Scope 3 emissions as those that by definition occur at sources not owned or controlled by the reporting company. Limited control is the normal condition of Scope 3, not a basis for exemption from it. The relevant inclusion criteria are materiality and relevance - not control. Fan travel satisfies both at each club and governing body examined in this piece.
The control argument does, however, raise a legitimate question about target design: if influence over fan travel is genuinely limited, what kind of target is appropriate? That is the question this section addresses - and the evidence is more complex than the low-influence ratings suggest.
Both UEFA's Calculator Methodology and Think Beyond rate organisational influence over fan travel as limited. UEFA scores it 'low to medium' for clubs and 'low' for national associations and leagues; Think Beyond treats inclusion in absolute reduction targets as optional 'due to limited control and difficulties in measurement’. These assessments are real and the challenges they identify are genuine: fan travel patterns are complex and variable; primary data can be difficult to obtain; individual travel decisions are shaped by factors well beyond any club’s reach.
But limited influence is not the same as no influence. And crucially, neither framework draws the conclusion that limited influence justifies excluding fan travel from accountability entirely - UEFA recommends inclusion in reporting anyway; the other permits an engagement target as a substitute. The question is whether an engagement target is an adequate response to emissions of this materiality. Think Beyond’s own appendix answers that directly: an engagement target carries no guarantee that emissions to the atmosphere will be reduced.
The sector’s own choices complicate the low-influence claim further. Clubs and governing bodies run fan travel surveys, incentivise low-carbon transport, work with local authorities to improve public transport options, and implement mobility measures at major events. UEFA’s own Euro 2024 mobility programme measurably shifted fan behaviour toward lower-carbon transport. Organisations do not invest resources in influencing behaviour they believe they cannot affect. The UK Climate Change Committee says that behaviour change can deliver “a 7% change in behaviour away from cars to public transport or active travel”.
A further significant question is what clubs and governing bodies structurally determine, as distinct from what individual fans decide. The structural decisions that most directly shape aggregate fan travel volumes sit primarily with governing bodies. Since the Paris Climate Agreement, UEFA has increased the total number of matches in its men’s European club competitions from 330 to 531 - a 61% increase - with directly foreseeable emissions consequences. The FA chooses to now stage FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley regardless of where competing clubs’ supporters need to travel from. Hosting the FIFA World Cup across three countries in 2026 and three continents in 2030 will have predictable impacts on fan travel emissions. Scheduling decisions by all governing bodies - kick-off times, fixture congestion, midweek European ties - shape fan travel patterns in ways clubs cannot control.
At club level, clubs cannot unilaterally determine how many competitive matches they play or where European away fixtures are held. But they exercise complete discretion over pre- and post-season friendlies - decisions with no governing body requirement attached and whose fan travel consequences are entirely foreseeable.
This summer, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea will play a match in Sydney - a decision entirely within both clubs’ discretion. Liverpool acknowledges that expanding Anfield’s capacity will increase fan travel emissions; Liverpool chairman Tom Werner has gone further - proposing overseas Premier League fixtures and committing to subsidise fan travel to them, describing this as making it ‘an attractive thing for the fans.’ Clubs can, on this account, actively engineer fan travel demand rather than merely respond to it. At match level, clubs have direct control over venue infrastructure, parking provision and pricing, ticket allocation, and transport partnerships - levers that directly affect modal choice and attendance patterns.
Each actor in football’s ecosystem can point to another as having important influence on fan travel volumes that they themselves do not - governing bodies to clubs’ commercial decisions, clubs to governing bodies’ structural choices. Individually, this provides a route through which low-influence claims can be constructed. Collectively, however, the system has substantial influence over fan travel - and no single organisation within it is required to account for it. That gap is not a technical inevitability - it reflects choices made, and not made, by every actor: about how to operate within the system, and about whether to push for a different one.
The positions stating low influence are not false - they are incomplete. The fuller picture is of organisations that actively shape fan travel through structural decisions, invest in influencing modal choice, and can demonstrably shift behaviour when they choose to. That is not the profile of organisations with no meaningful accountability for these emissions - nor one where engagement alone is a sufficient response to them.
SECTION 4 - Consequences and asks
The most direct consequence is that emissions which could be reduced are not. When the largest single source of a club or governing body’s footprint sits outside the accountability structure, no internal mechanism connects decisions to emissions performance. Competition expansion, venue selection, scheduling choices, overseas commercial tours - all these and more are made without any internal climate consequence.
The substitution of activity for outcome is incentivised. A club can meet every engagement target - surveys conducted, awareness content published, partners engaged - while its fan travel footprint grows.
Three upcoming processes will shape whether fan travel continues to fall outside football’s accountability structures. The Premier League has committed to a common greenhouse gas emissions dataset by end of season 2025/266. The GHG Protocol’s public consultation on the revised Scope 3 Standard is expected in the second half of 2026. SBTi’s Corporate Net-Zero Standard v2.0 is expected to be published in 2026 and mandatory from 2028.
Recommendations
One recommendation stands apart. This piece treats fan travel as an analytical category - emissions to be counted, excluded, or targeted. The fans producing those emissions have largely not been part of the conversation. What they are doing, willing to do, the barriers they face, and what structural changes they would support are questions that fans have not been engaged on beyond survey questionnaires. Deeper, structured engagement and co-design can have a much bigger role to play.
The Premier League
The upcoming dataset should require fan travel as a named, separately reported line in every club’s submissions, with estimation methodology stated. Unresolved questions elsewhere about how to classify fan travel emissions are not a reason to defer committing to reduce them - categorisation can be revisited as standards develop; the accountability commitment should not wait for it. Any exclusion should require a motivated explanation and an outcome metric.
UEFA
UEFA should state publicly that its Carbon Footprint Calculator Methodology makes no target-setting recommendation, and that clubs citing it as recommending exclusion from targets are extending it to a decision it does not address. It should clarify whether the Out of Scope classifications are consistent with GHG Protocol principles and whether spectator travel to UEFA events sits within its own 50% reduction target.
The FA
The FA’s planned fan engagement target should include at least one outcome metric with a defined baseline and reduction commitment - as a minimum. An engagement target without an outcome measure is not a climate commitment; but an outcome metric alone is not a substitute for an absolute reduction commitment on fan travel. Through its cross-football working group with the Premier League, other UK football bodies and the Government, The FA should ensure a common and proportionate approach to fan travel accountability applies across the football pyramid.
FIFA
The 2026 World Cup will generate fan travel emissions on a scale that dwarfs every club-level figure in this piece. FIFA’s 2021 Climate Strategy commits to developing a standardised greenhouse gas accounting methodology for its tournaments, but addresses fan travel only through an awareness and offsetting programme. FIFA should confirm fan travel is included in its net-zero by 2040 target; apply that methodology consistently and with independent verification across all tournaments; publish tournament-level fan travel emissions data as part of its planned bi-annual Climate Reports; require bidding host nations for tournaments to submit quantified emissions projections that are then assessed, including specifically on fan travel; and make a formal submission to the GHG Protocol’s 2026 public consultation on the classification of spectator travel.
GHG Protocol
The public consultation expected in the second half of 2026 is the opportunity to resolve the classification of spectator travel directly. Football stakeholders - clubs, governing bodies, supporter groups, and independent researchers - should make formal submissions.
SBTi
SBTi should clarify, before v2.0 is published, whether the exclusion justification requirement applies to emissions placed entirely outside all three scope boundaries - not just to exclusions within named Scope 3 categories.
Individual clubs
Clubs do not need to wait. Where there is genuine uncertainty about measurement, that uncertainty should inform target design - not serve as a reason to exclude the largest emissions source from accountability. A target set against an estimated baseline, with commitment to improve data quality over time, is more credible than no target (see ‘Endnote’ below) - and is what the GHG Protocol’s own guidance recommends.
Most clubs have not yet set an emissions reduction commitment of any kind. Among those that have, fan travel is typically excluded or left ambiguous. The governance framework examined here has made each position easy to sustain - no binding requirement, no common methodology that rules out exclusion, no accountability mechanism that distinguishes a justified boundary decision from an unjustified one. That is what needs to change. The burden of justification should sit with exclusion, not inclusion. The hardest recommendation, and the most necessary: all major clubs should set an emissions reduction commitment that includes fan travel.
END
Endnote on this analysis
Setting targets is necessary but not sufficient. What credible delivery of those targets requires — including football's dependence on decarbonisation happening elsewhere, particularly in the transport sector — is the subject of a separate piece in this newsletter available here.
This piece has grappled with complex and in places unresolved questions. The analysis is built in good faith from primary sources, but reasonable experts may read the same documents differently.
Responses from practitioners, fans, and researchers who can identify errors, supply additional evidence, or offer alternative readings are actively welcomed. The goal is a debate conducted with precision - not a verdict delivered without challenge.
Fran James (he/him)
Football and Climate Change Newsletter
info@footballandclimate.org
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The Science Based Targets initiative is a corporate climate action organisation that provides standards, tools and guidance on emissions reductions targets.
Manchester City’s reported fan travel figure of 2,751.7 tCO2e is unusually low compared to clubs of comparable size and attendance - a discrepancy that may reflect methodology or measurement approach rather than genuinely lower emissions.
In retail, INGKA (which controls IKEA’s stores) reports and targets its customer travel emissions, while Tesco excludes them from both. In music, Massive Attack’s Tyndall Centre roadmap proposes sector-wide targets explicitly including audience travel; an MIT report funded by Coldplay, Live Nation and Warner Music Group confirms fan travel accounts for 77% of UK live music emissions but stops short of recommending inclusion in formal reduction targets. In the cultural sector, the National Museum Directors’ Council voted not to require measurement or targeting of audience travel despite acknowledging it as the dominant emissions source and a thorny issue. In higher education, the standardised reporting framework places student travel in Scope 3 Category 9; Oxford University includes international student travel in a named reduction target while Leeds University includes staff and student commuting within its 2030 net zero target.
Publicly available reports from organisations using the UEFA carbon calculator methodology appear to be far fewer than those reportedly using it.
The SGS third-party validation of UEFA’s carbon calculator methodology assessed conformity of the 15 standard Scope 3 categories; it does not state whether the Out of Scope designation was assessed.