The sports industry, including professional football, is increasing its commitment to environmental sustainability both at an institutional and club level. However, there are no scientific studies in the literature that assess whether the environmental impact of football justifies such a commitment.
This paper reports the results of a life cycle assessment (LCA) of a football match played by Real Betis Balompié, a professional team in the Spanish Liga.
The results demonstrate that there are, in fact, significant environmental impacts and the carbon footprint and other impacts of the match are compared. The paper suggests that football club managers should focus on the transport to and from the stadium, the energy consumption and food and beverages as these have the highest environmental impact.
By measuring the environmental impacts of a professional football match using an LCA for the first time ever, this study offers actionable insights for football clubs to enhance sustainability and bridge significant research gaps in sports ecology.
1. Introduction
Consumers are increasingly demanding a change in strategy regarding environmental issues. Governments and companies have begun to set ambitious and challenging goals in terms of sustainability. The sports industry has also begun to play a fundamental role in raising awareness about environmental issues and sustainability (Khanna et al., 2024; Trendafilova et al., 2021) through advertising campaigns and the involvement of famous athletes (Todaro et al., 2022).
Sports organizations and institutions are collaborating to reduce the environmental impact of sporting events (Costello et al., 2017), and the former have launched awareness-raising campaigns among supporters to encourage environmentally friendly behaviour during sports events (Ross and Leopkey, 2017).
Football is also beginning to take important steps towards eco-sustainability (Tettamanzi et al., 2024). Although the World Cup in 2018 was watched by over 3.5 billion people, the environmental impacts on the local and global ecosystems of this sport are still not clear.
Environmental protection through sports clubs is crucial not only because these organizations have the power to influence large communities and foster positive behavioural change, but also because they operate in close connection with natural resources, public spaces and local ecosystems (Hautbois and Desbordes, 2023). By adopting sustainable practices, such as energy efficiency, waste reduction and promoting eco-friendly mobility, sports clubs can set a visible example for fans and partners, amplifying environmental awareness. At the same time, these actions support economic sustainability by reducing operational costs, attracting environmentally conscious sponsors and enhancing the club's reputation and long-term resilience (Schulenkorf et al., 2019). Investments in sustainability can also open access to green funding opportunities and create new revenue streams, such as through eco-certifications or hosting environmentally responsible events, proving that environmental stewardship and financial health can go hand in hand.
The most scientifically grounded method to evaluate the environmental impact of a product, process or organization is the life cycle assessment (LCA). LCAs have been frequently used in manufacturing sectors (Daddi et al., 2017; Bartolozzi et al., 2018) to identify environmental hotspots of activities and processes, and thus to foster the improvement in environmentally friendly actions (Daddi et al., 2016).
However, the use of an LCA to understand the environmental impacts of sports organizations is still in its infancy. Firstly, an LCA is typically used to assess the environmental impacts of products, but not as frequently for services or processes (e.g. a football match). Secondly, environmental sustainability in sport (and football) is a relatively recent topic, a few sports organizations are using it. Third, an LCA entails technicians using specific software to assess the impacts, which typically sports organizations do not have. Finally, it requires in-depth data collection. The LCA considers direct environmental aspects (e.g. energy consumption, water consumption, waste, etc.) as well as data on indirect environmental aspects (e.g. mobility of fans and staff, food and beverage impacts, merchandising, etc.). However, football organizations do not usually monitor all these environmental data as part of their standard activities.
To the best of our knowledge, no studies have used an LCA to assess the environmental impacts of a professional football match. Our aim is thus to provide a study that scientifically highlights the specific environmental priorities that football club managers should focus on in their strategies.
To bridge this gap in the literature, we decided to draft this paper. The aim of this paper is to increase awareness about the environmental impacts of a football match and thus facilitate the numerous emerging initiatives of football clubs aimed to adopt environmental improvement strategies. This study also aims to understand whether the environmental impacts of football justify the recent increase in commitment to environmental sustainability.
2. Theoretical framework and research questions
2.1 Sports and the environment: the challenge of environmental impact assessment
Since the late 2000s, academic interest in the relationship between sports and the natural environment has grown, contributing to a burgeoning literature examining the sports sector through the lens of environmental sustainability. To systematize this research strand, McCullough et al. (2020a) introduced the concept of “sports ecology”, which is defined as “the study of sport, the natural environment, and the bidirectional relationship between the two”. The authors differentiate between two major strands of sports ecology research: the environmental impact on sports and the environmental impact of sports. In fact, sports practice is strongly dependent on the quality of natural capital, as it benefits from a wide array of services provided by natural ecosystems (e.g. good air quality, appropriate weather conditions, etc.). On the other hand, the sports sector is responsible for a wide array of negative environmental externalities, stemming from resource consumption, pollution and waste derived from sports events (Kersulić et al., 2020). According to McCullough et al. (2020a, b), this latter aspect is one of the least studied topics in sports and sustainability research, as a comprehensive understanding of the environmental impacts of the sports sector is still lacking.
Similar insights also emerge from literature reviews on sports sustainability, which identify gaps and future directions for this research field. Gregori-Faus et al. (2025) analyzed the sustainable performance of sports facilities, including the three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, social and economic) according to the triple-bottom-line framework, allowing future assessments of sports facilities' contribution to sustainable development.
In a similar vein, Trendafilova and McCullough (2018) examined sports sustainability articles published between 2007 and 2017 in order to investigate the alignment between sports management research and the priorities of the sports industry in tackling environmental sustainability. Six areas were found to be the most studied: management, spectators' behaviour, facility management, marketing/communications, performance evaluation and social sustainability. The majority of articles could be ascribed to either management, spectators' behaviour or facility management categories, while performance evaluation and social sustainability were the least studied (Konstantopoulos and Manoli, 2023; Dietrich and McCullough, 2024). In terms of performance evaluation, the authors stated that “academic work focused more on performance and less on measurement”. The study thus highlighted the lack of thorough environmental footprint (EF) assessment studies as a major gap in the priority of research and industry professional: “evaluation metrics should be a priority for the field of sports management as clear metrics would allow not only for the easy measure, but also for information sharing among sports entities, practitioners and other stakeholders” (Trendafilova and McCullough, 2018).
McCullough et al. (2020b) also stressed a lack of consistency and scope in the sports industry's approaches to environmental impact assessments and reporting, highlighting the adoption of a life cycle perspective as an imperative next step to sustainability assessment. According to the authors, the environmental impact assessment of sports events involves the lack of appropriate and recognized standards for comprehensively assessing and reporting environmental impacts of event-focused experiential products. Moreover, sports organizations underestimate the environmental impacts of events by narrowing the scope of the environmental assessment. In fact, sports organizations have been found to focus exclusively on the direct impacts of their events due to difficulties in controlling indirect impacts and accessing reliable data. As a result, sports organizations often overlook a wide array of indirect, but substantial impacts occurring before and after the event phase (e.g. the mobility of spectators, staff and athletes, sports equipment production, etc.) and thus minimize the overall impact of sports events on the environment, also reporting more favourable sustainability outcomes that may not truly reflect actual performance.
To tackle this issue, McCullough et al. (2020a, b) call for a more widespread use of the LCA among sports organizations, also proposing a framework for including the direct and external environmental impacts of sports events within LCA studies. Such a framework also differentiates between production and consumption aspects. Within the direct impacts of event production, the framework includes venue energy use, water use and waste output. Direct consumption impacts, instead, include local transport, on-site purchases and tailgating activities (i.e. pre-match get-togethers with food and alcohol in the parking lot). On the externalities side, the framework accounts for production items such as the energy and water consumption of auxiliary facilities, as well as energy use, water use and waste from sponsors, media and vendors. External consumption, instead, accounts for spectators' out-of-town travels, accommodation, food consumption and other touristic activities. The environmental impacts of sports events thus extend beyond the event phase and processes directly controlled by the event organizer, to include aspects associated with the planning, production, consumption and closure of the event, which are also beyond the event organizers' control (Herold et al., 2024).
Despite its comprehensiveness as an environmental impact assessment methodology, the LCA is not widely used within the sports industry. To date, the use of LCA has been limited to major sports events and large sports organizations. Similarly, the LCA was only relatively recently introduced to the academic debate on sports environmental sustainability. Most research to date has instead focused on specific activities or dimensions of the sports event (such as spectatorship and transport) or specific impact categories (e.g. greenhouse gas emissions, air quality, resource consumption or land use), while neglecting a comprehensive assessment of all the activities, processes and impact categories connected with a sport event’s life cycle. The present study thus aims to extend the life cycle perspective to the environmental impact assessment of sports events, answering previous scholars' call for a more thorough and holistic approach to environmental impact assessment in sports sustainability research.
2.2 The environmental impacts of sports
Providing a comprehensive assessment of the environmental impact of sports events implies adopting a life cycle perspective, in order to account for impacts across all the interlinked phases that underlie the staging of a sports event. With an LCA, the most impactful processes in staging a sports event can be identified, as well as the most salient environmental aspects (e.g. energy consumption, waste) and impact categories (e.g. climate change, water depletion). In fact, the LCA was developed to assess the environmental impacts of products, processes and organizations across their full life cycle, i.e. from raw material acquisition, through production, to usage and waste disposal. Despite being initially designed to assess the EF of products, the LCA is increasingly used to experiential products, such as tourism (e.g.Casals Miralles et al., 2023), as the inherent complexity of such products requires holistic and highly integrated environmental assessment methods that go beyond the use phase of a single service or product.
The LCA is thus becoming a crucial tool for supporting sports organizations in decision-making with regard to the most effective environmental strategies, in devising appropriate performance monitoring systems and in facilitating communication regarding environmental performance (McCullough et al., 2023; Daddi et al., 2022). However, as previously discussed, the use of LCA is still limited in sports sustainability research.
To date, the majority of studies on the environmental impacts of sports events have focussed only on the carbon footprint of sports events (Grofelnik et al., 2020; Cooper, 2020; Cooper and McCullough, 2021; Atalay, 2022; Ito et al., 2022; Perkumienė et al., 2023), often emphasizing the climate impact of the mobility of spectators and athletes (Casper and Bunds, 2018), both in the professional and leisure sports sectors. Wicker (2018), instead, focused on the impacts of leisure sport activities on climate change, examining environmental behaviours of winter sport tourists, such as skiers and snowboarders in Germany. Similarly, Wicker (2019) examined the travel-related behaviour of active sport participants in order to assess the carbon footprint of regular sport activities in Germany. Loewen and Wicker (2021) estimated the carbon footprint of football fans travelling to Bundesliga matches in Germany in the 2018/19 season. Pereira et al. (2017), instead, examined facility location as a key variable in the climate impact of mega sporting events.
Another strand of studies has focused on the impact of spectators' presence at diverse sport events on air pollution and air quality (Collins and Cooper, 2017), focussing on various disciplines (from baseball to hockey, skiing and snowboarding) and categories (from professional to amateur and university leagues). For instance, Locke (2019) examined changes in air pollution associated with Major League Baseball games in the USA and found that incremental pollution associated with sports events was marginal compared to the average pollution levels of big cities. Triantafyllidis et al. (2018) focused on collegiate football events to assess pollution from supporters' tailgating and found that sport events held in high-density areas (e.g. college campuses) have a significantly higher impact than games held in low-density areas. Similar results are provided by Casper and Bunds (2018) and Gillentine (2018), whose studies highlight the impact of spectators' transportation and tailgating on air quality in locations hosting sports events.
Besides travel-related environmental impacts, studies have examined other environmental impacts of sports, such as those related to the production and use of sports products and equipment and other materials used in sports venues (Ulloa-Hernández et al., 2023). Russo et al. (2022) compared two football fields across their life cycles, where one field was made with natural and one with artificial turf, based on a product environmental footprint (PEF) methodology. Lastly, another strand of studies has focused on estimating the ecological footprint of major sports events (Kucukvar et al., 2021; Cooper and Alderman, 2020; Tóffano Pereira et al., 2019; Grofelnik et al., 2023). Despite adopting a life cycle perspective, and accounting for a wide variety of activities and processes (from spectators' transport, through food and beverages, to waste generation), such studies assess the footprint of sports events in terms of consumption of the natural resources (or land use), while overlooking other significant impacts on the environment, such as air pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases, which are instead accounted for the LCA method.
Despite providing valuable insights with regard to the environmental impacts of the sports sector, such studies fail to provide a comprehensive account of the environmental impacts of sports events, where a wide array of activities and actors (e.g. clubs, spectators, stadium owners, suppliers etc.) contribute to generating environmental externalities before and after the event phase. A narrow approach to EF assessment is thus likely to provide an incomplete picture of the actual impact of sports events on the environment, making it impossible to compare multiple activities (e.g. merchandising, catering) and processes (e.g. lighting, heating) across diverse impact categories, in addition to resource consumption. Consequently, the lack of a comprehensive understanding of the environmental impacts of sports events not only constitutes an important gap in sport sustainability research but also represents a major hurdle to the transition of the sports sector towards environmental sustainability. The present study thus aims to answer previous scholars' calls to expand the environmental assessment of sports events and to exploit the LCA.
The existing study gap lies in the lack of comprehensive, methodologically robust assessments of the environmental impacts of professional football matches. While sustainability in sport has garnered growing attention, most research to date has focused on general environmental policies, awareness campaigns, or specific issues like carbon emissions from travel, rather than a full-spectrum analysis of the EF of matches. LCA has rarely been applied to sporting events and virtually never to individual football matches. Moreover, previous studies often overlook indirect impacts, such as food production, merchandising or fan mobility, and lack standardized metrics, leading to fragmented or overly optimistic evaluations. This gap prevents sports organizations from fully understanding their environmental performance and undermines efforts to prioritize effective sustainability strategies. The present study addresses this gap by offering the first complete LCA of a professional football match, highlighting the most critical impact categories and proposing targeted mitigation strategies.
The purpose of conducting this research is to advance the body of knowledge in sports management by providing empirical evidence on the environmental impacts of professional football matches, thereby supporting sports clubs in making more informed and strategic sustainability decisions. The study offers sports clubs a clear and scientifically grounded understanding of where their most significant environmental impacts lie. This not only fills a critical gap in academic literature but also equips sports managers with practical insights and tools to identify environmental priorities, allocate resources more effectively and implement targeted interventions. Ultimately, the research contributes to embedding environmental responsibility into the core of sports management practices, helping clubs respond to increasing societal, regulatory and institutional pressures, while fostering innovation and long-term value creation in the sporting sector.
By conducting an LCA of a professional football match, the present study aims to answer the following research questions:
What are the most critical environmental impacts of a professional football match?
What are the most effective measures to mitigate the most critical environmental impacts of a professional football match?
Besides answering the research questions, our study discusses the practical implications of the results of our LCA and identifies the main environmental improvements that could be made to professional football matches.
3. Case study profile and methodology
3.1 Case study profile and functional unit
We investigated the environmental impact of Real Betis Balompié, a professional Spanish football club based in Seville (Spain). Founded in 1907, the club is currently in the top league and in 2022 won the Spanish National Cup (Copa del Rey). The club plays in “Benito Villamarín” stadium, which has a capacity of around 60,000 seats. It also has a training centre that was included in the environmental analysis. It has an average turnover of around € 65M with around 250 employees.
In this study, the functional unit is represented by one football match played in the stadium of the football club. Although the study was conducted between the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, the data refer to the 2018/2019 football season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the football world was hit hard by the pandemic, which forced national football associations, leagues and Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to organize matches with no spectators. Since supporters are one of the main features of a football match, we focused on the 2018/2019 season when supporters were still able to go to the stadium. The analysis aimed to calculate the average football match played at home by the club. Thus, the EF of all matches was calculated and divided by the matches played in order to obtain the average impact.
3.2 System boundaries
Since there are no product environmental footprint category rules and organisation environmental footprint sector rules on football matches to support us in the definition of the system boundaries, we created them ex-novo. We, thus, considered the following system boundaries:
energy and water consumption associated with staging a football match (both for the stadium and the training centre);
production and end of life of the sports apparel and equipment (t-shirts, shorts and footballs);
production and end of life of waste materials associated with the football match and related production of the corresponding materials (paper, plastic, glass, metal, household waste, plus wastewater treatment);
production and end of life of food and beverages associated with the football match (bars and kiosks and very important person (VIP) area including an average menu served at the stadium), including packaging;
production of the chemicals and materials used for cleaning and pitch maintenance (fertilizers, fungicides etc.);
production and end of life of the sport apparel, equipment for merchandising (t-shirt, shorts and balls);
mobility of staff and players (away matches);
mobility of spectators (home team and away team);
mobility of talent scouts throughout the whole season.
Capital goods production (i.e. stadium and all the related infrastructures) was not included in the system boundaries.
3.3 Life cycle inventory analysis
All input and output data for each process included in the system boundaries were collected in the life cycle inventory. In the 2018/2019 season, Real Betis played a total of 27 official matches (19 La Liga, 4 Copa del Rey, 4 Europa League). The average number of supporters attending home matches was 43,455 per match.
Energy consumption at the stadium (where the offices of the club are also located) and the training centre was 1,910,084 kWh and 52,318 m3 of natural gas. To calculate the electricity consumed (low voltage, around 2 million kWh), the national grid mix was applied, both to the electricity directly consumed by the stadium and training centre.
The total water consumption of the stadium and the training centre was 28,009 m3. This considers tap water for showers and offices as well as underground water used to irrigate all the pitches.
Direct data were collected on the apparel and sports equipment for the professional team and the merchandising. For the production of sports apparel and equipment, generic assumptions about the type and weight of materials were made according to secondary data. Real Betis has one merchandising store, which sold 30,000 shirts during the study period, while 2,575 shirts were used by the first male team.
Starting from the list of waste materials and chemical products (for cleaning and pitch maintenance) associated with the matches, the corresponding average production processes of the raw materials were designed in the model using secondary datasets taken from the Ecoinvent v.3.6 database. Proxy data were used for the production of turf as well as for some cleaning products.
Of the average 43,455 spectators at home matches, 250 were from the opposing team. The results of a survey of 500 supporters were used to calculate the mobility environmental impacts. The Real Betis staff (players included) travelling for away matches consisted of approximately 50 people for national matches and 85 people for international matches and talent scouts made 460 trips. Given that Real Betis took part in the Europa League, international trips by staff and supporters were also considered. According to the average attendance, average distance and the average transportation means used, the transport processes were modelled with secondary datasets taken from the Ecoinvent v.3.6 database.
The VIP area of Real Betis can host around 1,400 guests who consumed 18,090 kg of food and 52,700 litres of beer (other beverages were also considered). Bar and kiosks of the stadiums distributed 9,664 kg of sandwiches and 34,116 litres of Coca-Cola (total beverage consumption was more than 80,000 litres). The food and beverage packaging materials were included in the assessment, together with the plastic cups distributed to the supporters during the matches. Regarding the buffet in the VIP area, we considered the weight and composition (meat, vegetables, fruit, etc.) of an average menu.
Regarding waste production, no data were available for organic waste, while the total amount of plastic and paper waste was 172,800 kg, which translated into 0.20 kg of waste per spectator per match. All the waste was recycled by local waste management operators.
The quality of the data used in the LCA model was assessed. The total share of data with at least good quality was 87%, with 13% of poor quality. This is taken into consideration in the interpretation of the results, especially in terms of food and beverage processes, where several components were modelled with proxy data.
3.4 Life cycle impact assessment
The PEF results were calculated with the LCA software SimaPro 9.2 and the EF method (v. 2.0) provided in the Joint Research Centre (JRC, European Commission) report JRC115959 entitled “Suggestions for updating the PEF method”, which was adapted by the SimaPro 9 provider, in order to make it compatible with other datasets provided in SimaPro.
The method we used is the impact assessment method of the initiative of the European Commission and includes characterization, normalization and weighting.
The aim of the impact assessment phase is to group and then aggregate the inventoried elementary flows data according to the respective contributions to each impact category. Grouping is defined as “classification” and aggregating as “characterization”. The individual weight of each elementary flow contributing to a given impact category is therefore referred to as the “characterization factor”.
Characterization enables us to calculate the total impact category score for each impact category and to report it with a single unit: the impact category indicator (for instance, for climate change, kg of CO2 equivalent is the impact category indicator).
Additional steps performed during the impact assessment phase, according to the PEF methodology, are “normalization” and “weighting”.
Normalization relates the characterized results to a common reference situation, which can be expressed as one person's share of all emissions and resource use in a given geographic area (such as the European Union) for one year, i.e. Eco-Points (Pt). Normalization, therefore, helps to identify the impact's magnitude and it means that the results of the different impact categories can be summed up, once they have all been referred to the same reference unit.
Weighting entails attaching different levels of importance to impact categories, while summing all their individual scores, according to specific criteria, such as robustness in the impact assessment methods, or relevance and interest in public opinion. The result of weighting is an environmental score, which is associated with the total EF of the study.
In our study, all impact categories received the same weight in the baseline approach. The weighting also excluded three toxicity-related impact categories (human toxicity cancer, human toxicity non-cancer and freshwater ecotoxicity) since, according to the EF method, they are not seen as sufficiently robust to be included in external communications or in a weighted result.
We analyzed the following 16 midpoint impact categories: climate change (kg CO2 eq.), ozone depletion (kg CFC-11 eq.), human toxicity – cancer effects (comparative toxic unit for humans (CTUh)), human toxicity – non–cancer effects (CTUh), respiratory inorganics (disease inc.), ionizing radiation HH (kBq U235 eq.), photochemical ozone formation (kg non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC) eq.), acidification (mol H+ eq.), terrestrial eutrophication (mol N eq.), freshwater eutrophication (kg P eq.), marine eutrophication (kg N eq.), freshwater ecotoxicity comparative toxic unit for ecosystems (CTUe), land use (Pt), water resource depletion (m3 water eq.), resource use, energy carriers (MJ) and resource use, mineral and metals (kg Sb eq.). Further information can be found in the Supplementary Material.
4. Results
4.1 LCA results
Table 1 shows the results of the LCA applied to a football match.
Characterized results for one football match
| Impact category | Unit of measure | Total | Energy consumption (stadium) | Energy consumption (training c) | Water consumption (stadium) | Water consumption (training c) | Turf maintenance | Chemicals | Waste management |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Climate change | kg CO2 eq | 186236.02 | 16159.40 | 6818.83 | 144.11 | 77.53 | 462.96 | 891.13 | −1011.95 |
| Ozone depletion | kg CFC-11 eq | 0.032 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 9.59E−06 | 5.16E−06 | 3.41E−05 | 9.35E−05 | −0.01 |
| Ionizing radiation HH | kBq U235 eq | 28089.89 | 11769.44 | 4562.22 | 75.78 | 40.77 | 14.66 | 44.13 | −193.02 |
| Photochemical ozone formation | kg NMVOC eq | 657.13 | 58.56 | 23.23 | 0.34 | 0.18 | 2.54 | 2.24 | −2.99 |
| Respiratory inorganics | disease inc | 0.005 | 2.88E−04 | 1.13E−04 | 3.32E−06 | 1.79E−06 | 7.43E−05 | 4.99E−05 | −2.92E−05 |
| Human toxicity – non–cancer effects | CTUh | 0.015 | 1.76E−03 | 6.87E−04 | 1.89E−05 | 1.02E−05 | 1.99E−04 | 1.11E−04 | −1.57E−05 |
| Human toxicity – Cancer effects | CTUh | 0.001 | 6.54E−05 | 2.60E−05 | 2.06E−06 | 1.11E−06 | 1.95E−06 | 2.89E−05 | 4.15E−07 |
| Acidification | mol H+ eq | 858.13 | 135.97 | 53.22 | 0.84 | 0.45 | 5.12 | 6.66 | −4.39 |
| Freshwater eutrophication | kg P eq | 20.22 | 5.76 | 2.25 | 0.13 | 0.07 | 0.07 | 0.14 | −0.17 |
| Marine eutrophication | kg N eq | 243.19 | 21.30 | 8.36 | 0.14 | 0.07 | 1.71 | 1.30 | 1.36 |
| Terrestrial eutrophication | mol N eq | 2481.53 | 218.75 | 85.90 | 1.21 | 0.65 | 16.54 | 10.75 | −7.45 |
| Freshwater ecotoxicity | CTUe | 124688.70 | 3907.95 | 1653.56 | 60.84 | 32.74 | 612.25 | 2279.53 | 1114.55 |
| Land use | Pt | 1478301.70 | 77155.84 | 29942.95 | 792.35 | 426.31 | 36417.64 | 8,755,87 | −330.14 |
| Water scarcity | m3 depriv | 120052.79 | 10663.74 | 4127.76 | 29048.25 | 15628.73 | 54.40 | 788.03 | −571.18 |
| Resource use, energy carriers | MJ | 2750206.67 | 380251.62 | 155652.62 | 2933.43 | 1578.26 | 4594.67 | 14322.76 | −33533.87 |
| Resource use, minerals and metals | kg Sb eq | 0.03 | 6.34E−04 | 2.47E−04 | 6.64E−05 | 3.57E−05 | 5.81E−05 | 2.47E−03 | −3.64E−04 |
| Food and beverages (bar) | Food and beverages (VIP area) | Food packaging | Staff beverages | Team sport equipment | Merchandising | Supporters' mobility | Staff mobility | Talent scout mobility |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2037.40 | 5331.32 | 203.38 | 570.71 | 130.26 | 1592.27 | 14,941.90 | 5267.19 | 5619.60 |
| 0.00 | 0.00 | 9.00E−06 | 2.99E−05 | 0.00 | 4.77E−03 | 0.03 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 173.28 | 533.81 | 23.07 | 43.53 | 10.06 | 130.04 | 10193.74 | 323.90 | 344.47 |
| 7.73 | 19.04 | 0.88 | 2.13 | 0.54 | 6.63 | 471.16 | 35.23 | 29.70 |
| 1.43E−04 | 3.29E−04 | 7.92E−06 | 3.88E−05 | 5.14E−06 | 6.61E−05 | 0.00 | 1.42E−04 | 5.45E−05 |
| 1.61E−03 | 1.10E−03 | 1.29E−05 | 4.86E−04 | 8.89E−06 | 1.09E−04 | 0.01 | 4.81E−04 | 5.72E−04 |
| 6.46E−05 | 1.10E−04 | 1.53E−06 | 1.74E−05 | 1.24E−06 | 1.54E−05 | 0.00 | 2.64E−06 | 2.15E−06 |
| 20.81 | 44.11 | 0.93 | 5.76 | 0.54 | 6.72 | 521.27 | 31.54 | 28.59 |
| 0.56 | 1.29 | 0.11 | 0.15 | 0.03 | 0.40 | 9.38 | 0.02 | 0.02 |
| 11.68 | 20.59 | 0.23 | 3.40 | 0.12 | 1.43 | 148.49 | 12.50 | 10.52 |
| 82.04 | 164.62 | 2.23 | 23.13 | 1.06 | 13.04 | 1616.84 | 136.95 | 115.26 |
| 9041.60 | 11,160.55 | 218.89 | 2813.92 | 63.34 | 783.31 | 88409.29 | 1208.55 | 1327.85 |
| 217717.95 | 952324.98 | 24630.95 | 68647.66 | 234.83 | 3295.85 | 57470.44 | 380.84 | 437.37 |
| 2801.93 | 5261.71 | 155.97 | 916.85 | 61.38 | 771.61 | 2802.02 | 7.31 | 11.93 |
| 24434.40 | 63621.96 | 5301.28 | 6152.01 | 2649.67 | 33410.58 | 1936864.07 | 73580.06 | 78393.17 |
| 2.85E−03 | 9.99E−03 | 3.10E−05 | 6.58E−04 | 1.56E−04 | 2.74E−03 | 0.01 | 2.16E−04 | 2.58E−04 |
For the calculation of the water footprint, the PEF method is based on the Available WAter REmaining (water scarcity indicator) (AWARE) method developed by the water use in life cycle assessment, a working group of the UNEP-SETAC life cycle initiative. The AWARE method entails the quantification of the relative available water remaining per area once the demand of humans and aquatic ecosystems has been met (Boulay et al., 2018). It quantifies the potential for water deprivation, both for humans and ecosystems and is used to calculate a water scarcity footprint according to International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14046. It is calculated based on the remaining available water unit per area in a given basin, compared to the world average, after the demands of human and aquatic ecosystems have been met. The resulting characterization factor is between 0.1 and 100 and is then multiplied by the local water consumption inventory data. This is why water scarcity is an impact category with a higher value than the direct and indirect consumption of water.
In fact, if we had used the classic LCA method, where the indicator measures the direct and indirect water consumption, the result of that impact category would be 3,259 m3 of net use of water. When compared to the approximate 70,000 m3 of the PEF method, the result is completely different.
Waste management has negative values since the benefits obtained from recycling are higher than the impact. Even though it is not possible to compare the different impact categories of the characterized results, it is clear that energy consumption and mobility are the most impactful categories for almost all the impact categories.
To better understand the most relevant impact categories, the results need to be normalized and weighted (see Table 2).
Weighted and normalized results for one football match (individual scores and percentages)
| Impact category | Total (pt) | Total (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Climate change | 5.33 | 37.27% |
| Ozone depletion | 0.09 | 0.65% |
| Ionizing radiation HH | 0.36 | 2.50% |
| Photochemical ozone formation | 0.83 | 5.78% |
| Respiratory inorganics | 0.77 | 5.42% |
| Human toxicity – non–cancer effects | – | – |
| Human toxicity – cancer effects | – | – |
| Acidification | 1.03 | 7.18% |
| Freshwater eutrophication | 0.23 | 1.64% |
| Marine eutrophication | 0.27 | 1.88% |
| Terrestrial eutrophication | 0.55 | 3.84% |
| Freshwater ecotoxicity | – | – |
| Land use | 0.09 | 0.65% |
| Water scarcity | 0.95 | 6.61% |
| Resource use, energy carriers | 3.76 | 26.30% |
| Resource use, minerals and metals | 0.04 | 0.29% |
| Total | 14.29 | 100% |
For a more immediate comparison of the impact categories, the results were normalized and weighted to obtain a single score expressing the overall environmental impact of each scenario. Table 2 compares the overall impact of the various activities, where the lower the value of the impact (Pt), the better.
“Climate Change” and “Resource use, energy carriers” are by far the most relevant impact categories of a professional football match. For both the impact categories, energy consumption of the stadium and mobility contribute the most. Supporters' mobility is more relevant than that of the staff and talent scouts, which are almost the same in terms of impact.
However, while for “Climate change”, supporters' mobility occupies the first place, for “Resource use, energy carriers”, in first place is the stadium's energy consumption.
It is also important to highlight the contribution of supporter mobility in terms of photochemical ozone formation and of the energy consumption of the stadium for the ionizing radiation. These two activities almost equally contribute to the terrestrial and freshwater acidification. Supporters' mobility also plays a crucial part in the terrestrial eutrophication. Even though the energy consumption of the training centre is less than the stadium, it is quite high in all the categories of the stadium's energy consumption. Through similar environmentally friendly initiatives in these two contexts, football clubs might be able to considerably reduce their EF. Lastly, the water consumption of the stadium is clearly the most relevant activity in terms of water scarcity.
4.2 Interpretation of the results
The characterized results for one football match reported in Table 1, which shows the absolute impact, can be further analyzed in order to identify the key life cycle phases and processes that contribute most to the EF. Figure 1 reports the contribution of each life cycle phase to the overall EF.
The 3-D stacked bar chart displays percentages for different environmental and resource use impact categories. The vertical axis ranges from negative 20 percent to 100 percent with an interval of 20 percent. The horizontal axis lists the following category labels: “Climate change”, “Ozone depletion”, “Ionising radiation, H H”, “Photochemical ozone formation, H H”, “Respiratory inorganics”, “Non-cancer human health effects”, “Cancer human health effects”, “Acidification terrestrial and freshwater”, “Eutrophication freshwater”, “Eutrophication marine”, “Eutrophication terrestrial”, “Ecotoxicity freshwater”, “Land use”, “Water use”, “Resource use, energy carriers”, and “Resource use, mineral and metals”. Stacked bars represent contributions to each category using multiple color-coded segments. The legend at the bottom contains 16 colored categories: Orange: Energy consumption (stadium) Gray: Energy consumption (sport city) Yellow: Water consumption (stadium) Blue: Water consumption (sport city) Green: Turf maintenance Dark blue: Chemicals Beige: Food and beverages (bar and kiosks) Dark gray: Food and beverages (catering) Brown: Food packaging (bar and kiosks) Light blue: Beverages staff Olive: Waste management Navy: Sports apparel and equipment Team Light orange: Sports apparel merchandising Each bar displays heavily varied segment heights, indicating the proportional contribution of each category to the total within every impact type. The tallest segments generally represent “Energy consumption (stadium)”, “Energy consumption (sport city)”, and “Food and beverages (catering)”, but this varies for each impact category.Weighted and normalized results for one football match - contribution analysis. Source: Authors’ own creation
The 3-D stacked bar chart displays percentages for different environmental and resource use impact categories. The vertical axis ranges from negative 20 percent to 100 percent with an interval of 20 percent. The horizontal axis lists the following category labels: “Climate change”, “Ozone depletion”, “Ionising radiation, H H”, “Photochemical ozone formation, H H”, “Respiratory inorganics”, “Non-cancer human health effects”, “Cancer human health effects”, “Acidification terrestrial and freshwater”, “Eutrophication freshwater”, “Eutrophication marine”, “Eutrophication terrestrial”, “Ecotoxicity freshwater”, “Land use”, “Water use”, “Resource use, energy carriers”, and “Resource use, mineral and metals”. Stacked bars represent contributions to each category using multiple color-coded segments. The legend at the bottom contains 16 colored categories: Orange: Energy consumption (stadium) Gray: Energy consumption (sport city) Yellow: Water consumption (stadium) Blue: Water consumption (sport city) Green: Turf maintenance Dark blue: Chemicals Beige: Food and beverages (bar and kiosks) Dark gray: Food and beverages (catering) Brown: Food packaging (bar and kiosks) Light blue: Beverages staff Olive: Waste management Navy: Sports apparel and equipment Team Light orange: Sports apparel merchandising Each bar displays heavily varied segment heights, indicating the proportional contribution of each category to the total within every impact type. The tallest segments generally represent “Energy consumption (stadium)”, “Energy consumption (sport city)”, and “Food and beverages (catering)”, but this varies for each impact category.Weighted and normalized results for one football match - contribution analysis. Source: Authors’ own creation
Supporters' mobility (65.7%) and the energy consumed at the stadium (11.55%) are the two largest contributors to the overall footprint, followed by the energy consumed at the training centre (4.7%), the food and beverages served (6.4%) and the mobility of staff for away matches and of talent scouts (both 2.8%).
Table 3 highlights the environmental impact of the various activities. Mobility represents 71.3% of the total EF. It is followed by energy consumption (both stadium and training centre) with 16.2% of the EF while the third most relevant activity is food and beverage service (VIP areas and bars) with around 8.5% of the total impact.
Weighted results for one football match: % contribution of aggregated processes
| Activity | Contribution to the overall environmental footprint (%) |
|---|---|
| Mobility | 71.3% |
| Energy consumption | 16.2% |
| Food and Beverages | 8.4% |
| Water consumption | 2.6% |
| Other | 1.5% |
These four sources are also important, considering the individual impact categories. Figure 2 shows the percentage contribution of mobility, energy consumption, food and beverages and water consumption to the most relevant impact categories.
The horizontal stacked bar chart compares the percentage contribution of five different environmental resource impact categories: “Climate change”, “Photochemical ozone formation, H H”, “Acidification terrestrial and freshwater”, “Water use”, and “Resource use, energy carriers”, labeled from bottom to top on the vertical axis. The horizontal axis is labeled with percentages from 0 percent to 100 percent at intervals of 10 percent. Each bar is divided into color-coded segments representing distinct categories: blue for “Mobility—Total”, orange for “Energy Consumption—Total”, gray for “Food and Beverages—Total”, yellow for “Water Consumption—Total”, and green for “Others”, as depicted by the legend at the bottom. The data from the bars are as follows: Climate change: Mobility: 82 percent; Energy Consumption: 12 percent; Food and Beverages: 5 percent; Water Consumption: 0 percent; Others: 1 percent. Photochemical ozone formation, H H: Mobility: 81 percent; Energy Consumption: 4 percent; Food and Beverages: 4.7 percent; Water Consumption: 0.3 percent; Others: 10 percent. Acidification terrestrial and freshwater: Mobility: 67.5 percent; Energy Consumption: 22.5 percent; Food and Beverages: 7.5 percent; Water Consumption: 0.3 percent; Others: 2.2 percent. Water use: Mobility: 2 percent; Energy Consumption: 12.5 percent; Food and Beverages: 47 percent; Water Consumption: 38 percent; Others: 0.5 percent. Resource use, energy carriers: Mobility: 75.5 percent; Energy Consumption: 20 percent; Food and Beverages: 3.8 percent; Water Consumption: 0.2 percent; Others: 0.5 percent. Note: All the numerical data values are approximated.Contribution of mobility, energy consumption, food and beverages and water consumption to the main relevant impact categories. Source: Authors’ own creation
The horizontal stacked bar chart compares the percentage contribution of five different environmental resource impact categories: “Climate change”, “Photochemical ozone formation, H H”, “Acidification terrestrial and freshwater”, “Water use”, and “Resource use, energy carriers”, labeled from bottom to top on the vertical axis. The horizontal axis is labeled with percentages from 0 percent to 100 percent at intervals of 10 percent. Each bar is divided into color-coded segments representing distinct categories: blue for “Mobility—Total”, orange for “Energy Consumption—Total”, gray for “Food and Beverages—Total”, yellow for “Water Consumption—Total”, and green for “Others”, as depicted by the legend at the bottom. The data from the bars are as follows: Climate change: Mobility: 82 percent; Energy Consumption: 12 percent; Food and Beverages: 5 percent; Water Consumption: 0 percent; Others: 1 percent. Photochemical ozone formation, H H: Mobility: 81 percent; Energy Consumption: 4 percent; Food and Beverages: 4.7 percent; Water Consumption: 0.3 percent; Others: 10 percent. Acidification terrestrial and freshwater: Mobility: 67.5 percent; Energy Consumption: 22.5 percent; Food and Beverages: 7.5 percent; Water Consumption: 0.3 percent; Others: 2.2 percent. Water use: Mobility: 2 percent; Energy Consumption: 12.5 percent; Food and Beverages: 47 percent; Water Consumption: 38 percent; Others: 0.5 percent. Resource use, energy carriers: Mobility: 75.5 percent; Energy Consumption: 20 percent; Food and Beverages: 3.8 percent; Water Consumption: 0.2 percent; Others: 0.5 percent. Note: All the numerical data values are approximated.Contribution of mobility, energy consumption, food and beverages and water consumption to the main relevant impact categories. Source: Authors’ own creation
For the “climate change” (carbon footprint) and the “photochemical ozone formation” impacts, mobility accounts for 82.06 and 81.58%, respectively. For “acidification” and “resource use”, the mobility impact is slightly lower, but still relevant, i.e. 67.75 and 75.95% respectively. In the case of water scarcity impact (water footprint) the consumption of water and the Food and Beverages activities account for around 85% of the whole impact.
In terms of individual processes, the electricity purchased from the national grid for the stadium and the training centre contributes the most to the EF. The individual processes in the aggregated category “Mobility” impact more than the aggregated category “Food and Beverages”. In particular, the flights of the away teams' supporters and those of talent scouts have a strong impact. Supporters' mobility with trains and cars, both petrol and diesel, also significantly contribute to the EF of a football match.
In terms of carbon footprint (Table 4), supporters mobility is the most relevant contributor to the impact category indicator (kg CO2 eq.), with a higher contribution than the overall EF (76.2%), followed by energy consumption at the stadium (8.7%), energy consumption at the training centre (3.7%), talent scout mobility (3%), food and beverages in relation to catering (2.9%) and staff mobility for away matches (2.9%).
Main contributors to the carbon footprint (Climate Change impact category)
| Activity | Contribution (%) |
|---|---|
| Supporters' mobility | 76.2% |
| Energy consumption (stadium) | 8.7% |
| Energy consumption (training centre) | 3.7% |
| Talent scouts' mobility | 3.0% |
| Food and Beverages (catering) | 2.9% |
| Staff mobility (away matches) | 2.8% |
| Sport apparel and merchandising | 0.9% |
| Food and Beverages (bar and kiosks) | 0.1% |
In terms of carbon footprint (climate change impact category), the flights of the away teams' supporters represent more than half of the total mobility contribution, while home supporters account for 11% of total mobility contribution, with a marginal contribution from public transport. This analysis clearly shows that, although mobility is seldom under the direct control of the professional football organization, in order to lower the total carbon footprint, it is necessary to reduce the use of flights for guest supporters, while a further boost in the use of public transport could contribute to reducing the impact of home supporters' mobility.
The results for the carbon footprint and the overall EF are basically the same for the food and beverages category. The food and beverages consumed at the stadium's canteen are the largest contributor, with 39% of the total impact of the food and beverages category. Catering packaging accounts for 14%, while catering beverages account for another 10%, including food production (sandwiches) at bars and kiosks. Food production, as a whole, represents 50% of the total food and beverages (packaging included) contribution. Since this is an area where the professional football organization might have direct influence, the composition of the menu and the inclusion of more environmentally friendly types of food could be a target for potential improvements.
4.3 Sensitivity analysis
In order to check the consistency of the results and the influence of some key assumptions, the following supplementary analyses were carried out (see Table 5).
Sensitivity analysis scenarios
| Type of scenario assessed | Default assumption | Alternative assumption |
|---|---|---|
| Stadium and training centre electricity mix | 100% Spanish national grid mix | 50% wind power 50% solar power |
| Mobility of home supporters |
|
|
Regarding the electricity consumption in the default scenario, the Spanish national grid mix was assumed for the production of the electricity consumed both at the stadium and at the training centre. In this alternative scenario, a 100% renewable electricity scenario (50% wind power and 50% solar power) was applied instead.
Table 6 shows the results of the alternative scenario compared to the real one.
Sensitivity analysis: electricity mix (weighted results)
| Impact category | Unit | Default (20% public transport) | Alternative (100% green mix) | Difference (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Climate change | Pt | 2.05 | 1.40 | −31% |
| Ozone depletion | Pt | 0.03 | 0.02 | −15% |
| Ionizing radiation HH | Pt | 0.25 | 0.05 | −82% |
| Photochemical ozone formation | Pt | 0.39 | 0.29 | −26% |
| Respiratory inorganics | Pt | 0.26 | 0.20 | −23% |
| Human toxicity – non–cancer effects | Pt | – | - | - |
| Human toxicity – Cancer effects | Pt | – | - | - |
| Acidification | Pt | 0.56 | 0.33 | −40% |
| Freshwater eutrophication | Pt | 0.15 | 0.05 | −63% |
| Marine eutrophication | Pt | 0.15 | 0.12 | −21% |
| Terrestrial eutrophication | Pt | 0.30 | 0.23 | −23% |
| Freshwater ecotoxicity | Pt | – | - | - |
| Land use | Pt | 0.09 | 0.08 | −7% |
| Water scarcity | Pt | 0.55 | 0.44 | −21% |
| Resource use, energy carriers | Pt | 1.63 | 1.91 | −44% |
| Resource use, mineral and metals | Pt | 0.03 | 0.03 | −4% |
| Total | Pt | 6,44 | 6.38 | −35% |
This sensitivity analysis shows basically the same results for the overall EF and carbon footprint: the 100% renewable electricity mix has a huge impact on the final results of the environmental performance of a professional football match. The total EF would be reduced by 35% at a life cycle level, and carbon footprint by 31%, since the direct electricity consumption at the stadium and the training centre is very high. A significant reduction was found for all the other impact categories. Clearly, the electricity mix used by Real Betis could be enhanced considerably.
We also carried out a sensitivity analysis for home supporters' mobility, considering the assumptions made in Table 5 (default scenario and alternative scenario). Table 7 shows the results of the alternative scenario compared to the default one.
Sensitivity analysis: home supporters' mobility (weighted results)
| Impact category | Unit | Default (20% public transport) | Alternative (50% public transport) | Difference (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Climate change | Pt | 2.05 | 2.02 | −1% |
| Ozone depletion | Pt | 0.03 | 0.03 | −4% |
| Ionizing radiation HH | Pt | 0.25 | 0.25 | 0% |
| Photochemical ozone formation | Pt | 0.39 | 0.39 | 0% |
| Respiratory inorganics | Pt | 0.26 | 0.26 | −1% |
| Human toxicity – non–cancer effects | Pt | – | - | |
| Human toxicity – Cancer effects | Pt | – | - | |
| Acidification | Pt | 0.56 | 0.56 | 0% |
| Freshwater eutrophication | Pt | 0.15 | 0.15 | 3% |
| Marine eutrophication | Pt | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0% |
| Terrestrial eutrophication | Pt | 0.30 | 0.29 | 0% |
| Freshwater ecotoxicity | Pt | – | - | |
| Land use | Pt | 0.09 | 0.09 | 0% |
| Water scarcity | Pt | 0.55 | 0.56 | 0% |
| Resource use, energy carriers | Pt | 1.63 | 1.61 | −1% |
| Resource use, mineral and metals | Pt | 0.03 | 0.03 | −1% |
| Total | Pt | 6,44 | 6.38 | −1% |
The increased use of public transport by home supporters does not significantly affect the overall life cycle EF, or any impact category. However, in absolute values, although the reduction seems marginal in terms of the total footprint, it would still lead to an annual saving of roughly 1 ton of CO2 equivalent emissions. Therefore, public transport should be promoted over private cars.
5. Discussion
5.1 Managerial implications
The topic of environmental sustainability in football has become of increasing interest for academics as well as practitioners. Several clubs are adopting environmental strategies and reporting initiatives; policymakers are including green objectives in policy acts (e.g. European Union (EU) Work Plan for Sport); international and national football institutions and federations are putting pressure on clubs to stimulate their green choices (Daddi et al., 2021). This increasing interest at practitioner level is feeding and is fed by an increasing interest by academics. Several papers have been recently published on environmental management in sport organizations and international conferences in sport management are increasingly discussing environmental sustainability in sport (Daddi et al., 2021; Sherif et al., 2025).
RQ1 highlights the most relevant impacts of a football match. A football match at Real Betis emits 71,519.25 kg of CO2 eq (Table 1), which is 32% of the total EF of a match (Table 2). Thus, regarding RQ1, the carbon footprint is the highest environmental impact among the 16 impact categories considered by the LCA method. The second highest impact category is “Resource use, energy carriers” and represents about 25% of the whole EF.
Our study highlights that although some clubs are looking at reducing the carbon footprint as their preferred method, the use of the carbon footprint, i.e. only considering climate, identifies just one part of the overall environmental impact of a match (McCarthy et al., 2024). On the other hand, an LCA identifies the whole EF of a match with 16 different impact categories. Thus, if only the carbon footprint is used, 68% of the environmental impact is not taken into account. This is why an LCA is of such importance.
There have been several initiatives aimed at encouraging sports and football organizations to adopt climate actions. The United Nations launched “Sports for Climate Action”, before winning his sixth Formula One drivers' championship Lewis Hamilton raised the issue of climate change (Edgar, 2020), and in late 2021, the European Commission and UEFA agreed on a common awareness raising campaign to fight climate change (Graham et al., 2018). Nevertheless, these results show that holistic approaches are crucial to effectively reduce the EF. Sports institutions should, thus, consider LCA within their sustainability initiatives (Lyu, 2024; Rinker et al., 2025).
RQ2 aimed to identify the key activities that contribute to the EF of a football match. Mobility is the main polluting process, but among staff and players' mobility for away matches, talent scouts' mobility and supporters' mobility, the latest is the most important in terms of environmental impacts as already highlighted by Marrucci et al. (2024). The sensitivity analysis in Section 4.3 demonstrates how an increase in the use of public transport by home supporters does not particularly reduce the EF, in fact, the highest impact is linked with away supporters flying to attend matches. However, Real Betis has little management control in terms of reducing in the reduction of the impacts derived from flights of away supporters, as they clearly do not want to discourage away supporters from attending matches. So, the focus should be mainly on home supporters and in fact, they are encouraging the use of bikes since there are bike lanes from the centre of Seville to the stadium (Breitbarth et al., 2023).
The second important process is energy consumption. In football, energy consumption derives not only from the lights during matches and in the offices. Stadiums often use specific lamps that are kept close to the natural turf to stimulate grass growth also during periods with low natural light. Real Betis does not need to use these lamps since the natural light in the south of Spain is sufficient for the grass, so electricity consumption is mainly linked to lighting pitches (Falsafi et al., 2025). Our sensitivity analysis shows that clubs should use suppliers that produce electricity fully from renewable resources. Photovoltaic panels on the roof of the stadium, as used already by some European clubs, would also lessen the carbon footprint. Another green solution is the use of light-emitting diode (LED) lights for the pitches. Real Betis is already using them in the main stadium and has also planned to install them in the training centre.
Food and beverages represent the third most important environmental impact. Real Betis hosts 1,400 away supporters every home match. A lot of food and beverages are distributed. Similarly, the bar and kiosks in the stands of the stadium are numerous. In this case, clubs could ask catering services to increase vegetarian menus, adopt reusable or compostable cups for drinks and dishes for food, and reduce the packaging of food and beverages (Marrucci et al., 2025).
From an end-of-service perspective, the approach used to manage waste and leftovers is very important (Bianchini and Rossi, 2021). Real Betis sometimes donates leftovers to local parishes and NGOs that manage canteens for underprivileged people. Clubs should send organic waste for recycling. In our study, all the organic waste is recycled through the local system of waste management. Some European stadiums have also purchased their own digesters for organic waste located in the stadium area, though this works best when the stadium is far from residential areas due to the odours digesters emit.
In order to assess the environmental impact of a football match, we need to make some comparisons, which we believe are very revealing of the true extent of the wastage and the environmental impact of football. According to EU figures, the average CO2 emissions from a new mid-range passenger car are 122.3 g CO2/km (European Environmental Agency, 2022). This means that the carbon footprint of a football match is equivalent to 584,783 km, i.e.i.e. the total emissions of 48 cars that travel from Rome to Hong Kong. The water footprint linked with the direct and indirect consumption of a single match is 3,259 m3. This value considers the direct and indirect water consumption of Real Betis. Applying the PEF method, i.e.i.e. considering also the water scarcity of the location where the water is consumed, the value increases to 70,315 m3 per match. Even without considering the water scarcity indicator and thus only considering the first value of the water footprint, the water consumption of a match is sufficient to irrigate 13,000 m2 of tomato fields in central Italy for one season (Emilia Romagna Region, 2016).
Similar equivalences can be made considering the absolute values and manufacturing performance as a benchmark. The manufacturing industry with the highest water consumption is the paper production sector. The average consumption to produce one tonne of tissue paper is 17.5 m3 (Daddi and Iraldo, 2016), meaning that with the (direct and indirect) water consumed during an entire season at Real Betis, an incredible 5,030 tonnes of paper could be produced. Similarly, the average electricity consumption to produce 1 m2 of finished leather is 3.09 kWh (Daddi et al., 2016; Marrucci et al., 2022). With the total seasonal consumption of electricity of Real Betis, a tannery could produce 618,150 m2 of finished leather.
5.2 Theoretical implications
This study offers several theoretical contributions to the field of sport sustainability management.
First, it directly addresses McCullough et al.'s (2020a, b) call for broader adoption of LCA in the sports sector. To our knowledge, this is the first scientific publication to present LCA results for a professional football match, thereby opening new avenues for research and reinforcing the relevance of LCA in the context of sports ecology.
Second, the study serves as a conceptual bridge between two traditionally distinct domains: sustainability in sports management and sustainability in manufacturing. While LCA has been widely used to evaluate environmental impacts in manufacturing processes (e.g. Daddi et al., 2017; Bartolozzi et al., 2018). Sport organizations, however, have only recently begun to explore comparable approaches. By adapting LCA to the service-based, event-driven nature of professional football, this study not only imports a proven tool into a new context but also opens fertile ground for cross-sectoral theoretical developments. It encourages scholars to think beyond sector boundaries and to conceptualize sustainability assessment as a transferable discipline capable of evolving with new use cases.
Third, the study advances the integration of scientific data in sport sustainability management. While the use of data-driven methods is already well established in areas such as athlete performance analysis (Goes et al., 2021), our work emphasizes the value of applying the same rigour to environmental performance assessment. By doing so, it contributes to the evolving theoretical discourse around evidence-based decision-making in sport ecology.
Finally, the research underscores the importance of comprehensive environmental measurement systems, not only as managerial tools but as foundational elements for future theory-building in the sustainability of sport organizations. The inclusion of indirect impacts, often overlooked in sport sustainability studies, enhances the precision and depth of environmental assessments and supports the development of more robust sustainability frameworks in sport management scholarship. Calculating environmental impacts in a systematic and scientifically grounded way–such as through LCA–is essential for moving beyond symbolic sustainability gestures toward measurable progress. Without quantifying impacts, clubs and institutions risk adopting fragmented or superficial strategies that fail to address the most pressing environmental issues. Measurement provides visibility: it allows organizations to identify their environmental hotspots, track progress over time and compare the effectiveness of different interventions. It also enables transparency and accountability, both of which are increasingly demanded by regulators, sponsors and the public. From a theoretical standpoint, incorporating environmental metrics into the study of sport management enriches the conceptual understanding of sustainability by introducing empirical rigour. It shifts the focus from abstract sustainability goals to operational performance, thereby linking normative aspirations with practical outcomes. In this way, the calculation of environmental impacts is not merely a technical exercise but a necessary foundation for advancing both research and practice in sport sustainability.
5.3 Limitations and future research agenda
Some environmental impacts are influenced by geographical location, such as the country's energy mix. Our study was carried out with a club based in southern Spain. This obviously impacted our results, which can thus not be totally generalized. The weather conditions in Spain influence the water used to irrigate the pitch, and less water would be required in northern countries.
Our data also have some limitations. For example, for reasons of confidentiality, we could not use the exact destinations of the talent scouts and they were estimated according to the country of destination. Regarding the energy consumption, we did not consider the electricity consumed by the millions of televisions and computers used by supporters when watching Real Betis matches from home. Finally, the LCA method itself has limitations as it does not consider some environmental impacts. For example, noise emissions in the assessment of the environmental impact on local communities in the proximity of the stadiums, or the visual impact caused by temporary and permanent infrastructures at the grounds.
Future studies could use an LCA to investigate the environmental impacts of other sports events and compare them with our results. The LCA methodology could also be used to compare different environmental solutions to reduce the impact of sports events. For example, in terms of food and beverages, more clubs should be encouraged to eliminate single-use plastic cups and replace them with reusable cups, compostable cups or recycled paper cups. In this and other cases, the LCA could be a useful tool to support the decisions aimed at selecting the most sustainable way to reduce the amount of plastic consumed.
6. Conclusions
This paper highlights that the environmental impacts of professional football in Europe are comparable to other industries. The carbon footprint is the main impact category and mobility and specifically supporters' mobility, is the most important process regarding the environmental impact.
We believe that our study also has some important political implications. The football industry should be considered like other industries in terms of environmental policies. Circular economy policies or and climate change policies are still too oriented toward the manufacturing sector and the sports sector has not yet been clearly targeted. Similarly, European sports policies should continue to include environmental sustainability as a target. The evolution of the EU Work Plan for Sport (European Council, 2020) and the recent Resolution of European Council on Sport and Sustainable Development (European Council, 2022) open the way toward a stronger presence of green policies in sport. International and national football institutions, such as Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and UEFA, along with national football associations, should continue to encourage environmental actions among football clubs to reduce the impact of football matches (McCullough et al., 2023; Daddi et al., 2025).
Football club management could exploit our findings to draft their environmental strategies. Too often, the management plans and improvement actions are taken without any clear identification of the priorities to target and fail to use proven scientific and technical methods. Our study demonstrates that the use of the LCA in football is feasible and is the right approach for understanding the environmental impacts of the activities of football clubs.
The supplementary material for this article can be found online.
