ICC World Cup 2023: Good for India's economy but bad for climate?

Sporting events may unite the world and provide host nations economic benefits, but they increase carbon emissions. The ongoing ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 being hosted by India could follow this trend

With the showpiece ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup well underway, the tension and anticipation are palpable in the air, and with good reason. In 2011, the last time India hosted the Cup, it lifted the trophy. Indeed, since then, the two subsequent hosts—Australia in 2015 and England in 2019—won the Cup, further boosting the host’s hopes.   

That optimism has also been fuelled by the Indian team’s formidable line-up, featuring the likes of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah.

And India is expected to host over 2.48 million visitors wishing to watch the 48 matches involving 10 countries that will be played in stadiums across 10 cities over 46 days between October 5 and November 19. With such numbers, the tournament is seen boosting the economy and the fortunes of India’s cricketing administrator, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

There are no regulations in India requiring...reporting, or control measures with respect to GHG emissions for sporting events, except when [it] may be covered under another
regulation

BOSE VARGHESE
SR. DIRECTOR–ESG, 
CYRIL AMARCHAND MANGALDAS

But amid this excitement, there is one aspect that will need to be reckoned with—the Cup’s carbon footprint. Although projected carbon emission figures for the event haven’t been officially calculated, industry experts estimate that it could rival the emissions seen at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, estimated at around 3.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, or the equivalent of 1.34 billion litres of diesel, based on the US Environmental Protection Agency’s calculator. But, no measures to offset such emissions have been announced.

“The cricket World Cup will not be anything less unless sustainable measures are taken,” says Ajay Pillai, Partner for Risk Advisory at Deloitte India. He explains that though there are fewer matches in this tournament than in the football event, the duration of a 50-over cricket match is longer. Most are day-night matches, requiring floodlights, extensive travel for the teams, and a large number of spectators.

Tricky Calculations

The first big hurdle in addressing this challenge is calculating the carbon footprint. The multifaceted nature of carbon emissions—from diverse sources to the availability of data, temporal considerations, indirect emissions, and behavioural influences, to name just a few factors—adds to the complexity.

Every event has a unique carbon footprint that depends on multiple factors, such as the materials used in construction or renovation, the energy consumed for lighting and air conditioning, transportation, and so on. “It is crucial to note that the precise carbon footprint estimates for a particular event can vary greatly depending on the host country’s infrastructure, transportation systems, and energy sources,” explains Jagjeet Sareen, climate expert at management consulting firm Dalberg Advisors.

Such an analysis has been done in India. Last year, Schneider Electric and Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Rajasthan Royals calculated the carbon footprint of one T20 match at about 10,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent—or about 3.72 million litres of diesel—and this was when the tournament was played in only two cities due to Covid-19 and had a low carbon footprint.

This helped Rajasthan Royals and Schneider Electric host a carbon-neutral match, where an emission offset strategy was adopted. Under this, Schneider Electric committed to working with other agencies to plant 17,000 trees over six months to sequester CO2 emissions over 30 years by making that particular match carbon neutral by 2052.

Now consider the scale of the cricket World Cup. It involves extensive travel for teams, support staff, and fans, both from other countries, and from within India. Moreover, most matches require floodlights. Additionally, the event entails complex logistics and will generate substantial waste in the form of water, food and plastics. Plus, millions of viewers will tune in to watch and stream these matches on devices like TVs, mobile phones, and laptops. Taken together, the resultant footprint becomes exceedingly significant.

The International Cricket Council (ICC), the global governing body of cricket, is aware of this. Its spokesperson tells Business Today, “The ICC is still developing a global sustainability strategy for the sport, and as a part of that, it undertook a carbon footprint audit of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 and will do the same for the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 so we can understand the environmental impact of our events and have a baseline from which to work in reducing our footprint.” 

It says a number of sustainability initiatives are ongoing. “This includes plastic recycling machines being installed at every venue, which will see the waste turned into ICC staff clothing for future events. There is a waste management project in partnership with Coca-Cola and United Way Mumbai, which includes waste segregation and reducing landfills,” the ICC spokesperson explains.

Some of the ICC’s official partners, too, have announced sustainability measures. Travel booking portal Booking.com, the official accommodation partner for the tournament, is ensuring that travellers looking to catch a match can book sustainable stays. Santosh Kumar, Country Manager for India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Indonesia at Booking.com, says, “Our travel sustainable badge will help provide the necessary information to travellers who wish to make sustainable travel choices for the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup. Currently, we have over 20,000 properties in India that are being recognised for their sustainability efforts.” Queries sent to other partners like BIRA 91, MRF, Byju’s, BharatPe, Nissan, Oppo and Aramco went unanswered.

The BCCI did not respond to Business Today’s queries. But, during this year’s IPL, it launched a “Go Green” campaign in which it would plant 500 trees for every dot ball bowled in the playoff round. Separately, on September 29, BCCI Secretary Jay Shah posted on X, “We’ve partnered with @TataCompanies in an eco-friendly endeavour to plant 147,000 saplings. The symbolic 100,000th sapling found its home at the iconic Narendra Modi Stadium, embodying our commitment to giving back to Mother Earth.” 

Catch 22

The Cup comes at an interesting time for India. In recent times, India has taken the lead in matters concerning sustainability. In 2014, it became the first country to mandate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for companies, which stipulates that businesses allocate a minimum of 2 per cent of their net profits towards societal concerns like poverty alleviation, gender equality and environmental protection.

Following up on that, in May 2021, the Securities and Exchange Board of India introduced the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting framework that requires the top 1,000 listed entities by market capitalisation to report on sustainability-related aspects in their annual financial report submitted to Sebi from financial year 2022–23 (FY23). Later that year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi set the marker during the COP26 conference in Glasgow by committing to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070.

But one area where there is a gap is the lack of specific regulations pertaining to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from sporting events.

“There are no regulations in India requiring monitoring, reporting, or control measures with respect to GHG emissions for sporting events, except when a particular GHG may be covered under another regulation due to its toxicity, health hazard, or other impacts,” says Bose Varghese, Senior Director-ESG at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. Besides, he adds, CSR rules are only applicable to companies. Federations are not covered.

Of course, the event organiser can announce initiatives proactively. In fact, there are several international initiatives that Indian organisers could adopt, says Sareen of Dalberg Advisors. “These include ISO 20121: Event Sustainability Management System, an international standard that provides a framework for managing the social, economic, and environmental impacts of an event, including measures to address climate change,” he says.

There’s also the UNFCCC Sports for Climate Action Framework that calls on organisations to prepare a strategy to achieve climate neutrality for their events. Then there’s the Green Sports Alliance, which offers resources and guidance on sustainability in sports; the Carbon Trust Standard for Sport certification programme that helps sports organisations and venues worldwide measure, manage and reduce carbon emissions; and the Global Reporting Initiative, which provides sustainability reporting standards.

Loads to do 

While the initiatives undertaken by the ICC and its official partners like Booking.com and even stadiums are a good start, these may not suffice.

A three-pillar approach can be taken to decarbonise the tournament—strategise, digitise, and decarbonise, explains says Deepak Sharma, Zone President, Greater India, and MD & CEO Schneider Electric India. It should start with developing a strategy to measure the emission footprint and create a decarbonisation road map. As a next step, it’s important to digitise resource use and monitor emissions. For instance, Schneider Electric’s digital solutions have been used across multiple stadiums globally, such as the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in Australia, to help reduce its emissions footprint.

“In the MCG, with our complete range of solutions, we have helped [it] discover up to 50 per cent energy-saving opportunities along with safer and improved asset management,” says Sharma.

Finally, a decarbonisation action plan must be implemented that should include reducing the use of resources such as electricity, fuel, water, etc. Avoiding on-site diesel generators should be considered. While not much can be done about the emissions generated by air travel during the tournament, for locals, free access to public transportation for all ticketholders and accredited staff (including metro) should be offered. This could be bundled with e-vehicles for the movement of staff and players, as was done at the first edition of MotoGP Bharat held in September in Uttar Pradesh. And for drinks served at stadiums or even otherwise, bottles made from recycled plastic could be considered.

Climate change cannot be addressed with a single initiative. But every single initiative counts.