Press release on behalf of Greenpeace Nordic, Klimakultur, New Weather Sweden and Save Our Snow:
News that heavily polluting oil and gas company, Equinor, will no longer be a sponsor of the Norwegian ski and football federations was welcomed as a big win for the climate, clean air and the future of winter sports. The move was seen as aligning with the recommendation from UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres to stop fossil fuel advertising.
Since 2009, fossil fuel giant Equinor has been a sponsor of the Norwegian ski federation, but the company’s emissions are estimated to be responsible for the loss of 635 square kilometres (km2) of snow cover each year, directly threatening the future of the sport they sponsor (see the report Dirty Snow, March 2024). Deals such as these are now widely condemned as ‘sportswashing’. September 24th 2024 NRK reported that Equinor will be leaving the Norwegian ski and football federations as a sponsor with the move welcomed by athletes and experts.
“When sports allow themselves to be used as a billboard for companies whose products threaten their future, they are in effect promoting their own self destruction. Just as tobacco sponsorship of sport was stopped to protect human health, so fossil fuel sponsorship must end in sport to protect athletes, sports and our collective future. This is a clear win and an important step forward for the global sports community”, says Andrew Simms, New Weather Institute, UK.
“These polluting companies are melting the snow skiing is dependent on. Now is themoment for winter sports organisations to adopt policies that clearly exclude companies melting the future of their own sport”, says Anna Jonsson, Save Our Snow and New Weather Sweden.
High carbon sponsorships in winter sports have been criticized by climate, health and environmental experts as well elite winter sportspeople, and skiers, such as the Swedish skier Emil Johansson Kringstad who finished an elite ski race in Beitostølen, Norway, by showing an alternative banner “Stop Equinor – tomorrow is melting” which was a play on the wording of an the original slogan from Equinor’s “heroes of tomorrow”. Now, that Equinor’s sponsorship is ending he is commenting:
“It feels good that the protests against sportswashing are yielding results. Hopefully it can turn things upside down and remove more major polluters from the sport – and as a skier, I think mainly of Vasaloppet`s collaboration with the oil company Preem”, says Emil Johansson Kringstad, former Swedish elite skier.
After weeks in which extreme weather has hit multiple European countries and wrecked several football grounds and games, Equinor is also ending sponsorship of the Norwegian football federation. “As a football fan, I’m glad we’ll see fewer ads for dangerous fossil fuels when watching a match. Football should stop selling its platform to big polluters like Equinor. I can also imagine many players are relieved they no longer have to promote such a dirty company”, sais Frank Huisingh, Fossil Free Football.
Equinor has announced that it will move sponsorships from sports to academia and students:
"I loudly applaud Equinor leaving sports, but it is worrying that they are planning to move their sponsorships to academics and students. Equinor still has 99 per cent of its energy production from fossil fuels, so all the talk about green transition is only fantasy. Equinor still is a greedy oil company”, says Frode Pleym, Greenpeace Norway.
"While it`s encouraging to see an end to Equinor`s exploitation of young athletes, their pivot towards education raises serious alarm bells. This influence in schools could be even more insidious and damaging to Norway`s green transition" says Erlend Eggen, Klimakultur SA.
More comments: Lauren MacDonald from Stop Rosebank: “There is a big risk that new sponsorships will just do the same thing as the ones they are now leaving; gloss over the fact that Equinor’s main business is oil and they have no credible plans to change that. The Rosebank oil field is a great example of this; Equinor is the owner of what could be the largest new oil field in the UK - in the middle of a climate crisis. Money spent on sponsorships would be better spent transitioning into the company they claim to be.”
For more info, please contact:
Anna Jonsson, New Weather Sweden, anna.jonsson@newweather.se, +46737105486
Gustav Martner, Greenpeace Nordic, gmartner@greenpeace.org, +46768346050
Erlend Eggen, Klimakultur, erlend@klimakultur.no, +4746680647
