FIFA aims to score green goals far beyond Germany

By Tim King

Date: 15/06/06

One of the avowed aims of the organisers of the 2006 World Cup was to ensure that the event did not contribute to global warming. FIFA sought to make the event 'climate neutral' both by minimising as much as possible any damaging effects and by off- setting them with compensatory action.

Whether or not the World Cup is 'climate neutral' is now a matter of some dispute. Some green groups point out that the organisers have not included in the balance-sheet the effect of hundreds of thousands of spectators travelling from all over the world to the matches in Germany.

That is not denied by the organisers, who had restricted their objective to balancing the climate-change effects within Germany. So travel by fans within Germany would be included in their calculations, but not their journeys to Germany.

Undoubtedly, the efforts made by the German organisers are much greater than those made in the past. The stadiums in Munich and in Nuremberg have just been awarded certification by EMAS - the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme - a voluntary European initiative for environmental management (the same award that was given to the Commission's revamped Brussels headquarters, the Berlaymont).

At Kaiserslautern, the stadium is being turned into a solar power station. The roofs of three of the stands will support photovoltaic panels.

By the end of the year, there should be sufficient electricity to supply 200 family homes. The private investment of EUR 4 million will be paid for by selling the electricity.

At Gelsenkirchen, the city authorities are trying to encourage fans to reach the stadium by public transport, with a fast and frequent tram link from the train terminus and low-emissions shuttle buses from the park-and-ride sites. Devices for generating solar energy are installed at both the stadium and the station.

Despite these efforts, the German ...ko-Institut has calculated that the event will generate an extra 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, which the organisers will have to find ways of compensating.

Although the price at which the compensation has been fixed is not being disclosed, the market price for a tonne of C02 is around EUR 14. The World Cup 2006 has become the biggest-ever exercise in offsetting climate-change effects by supporting clean development mechanisms in the developing world. When one project in Sri Lanka proved insufficient, the sport's governing body FIFA turned to a Swiss-based foundation, MyClimate, which started out providing a way for people to offset the climate effects of air-travel.

MyClimate has selected two projects to benefit from FIFA's investment. In the Limpopo province of South Africa, a citrus producer and processor will have its coal-fired boilers replaced so that they can run off saw- dust produced by the neighbouring saw-mills. In the Johannesburg area, methane gas from a waste-treatment plant will be captured and used to generate electricity.

The environmental effects of the World Cup, both negative and positive, will be felt around the world.

Article reports on efforts being made to offset the climate-change effects of the football World Cup 2006.
Article is part of a European Voice Special Report, 'The EU and Football'.