The 2026 Winter Olympics - a turning point for sports sponsorship?

Winter sports are extremely vulnerable to global heating - yet they continue to act as billboards for high-carbon sponsors.  Across the Cool Down network, we campaigned hard to draw attention to this obvious tension, both publicly and behind the scenes. 

We have collated some of the most useful resources from the campaign in one place to help build on advocacy efforts ahead of the next Winter Games in 2030 in the French Alps. 

To find our more about this evolving work, please visit Save Our Snow. 

RESEARCH

The ‘Olympics Torched’ report from the New Weather Institute, in collaboration with Scientists for Global Responsibility and Champions for Earth,  found that, based on official data and excluding the emissions related to sponsorship deals with major polluters, the Winter Games will cause greenhouse gas emissions of about 930,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e), with the largest contribution from spectator travel. In the coming years, these emissions will cause a loss of approximately 2.3 square kilometres of snow cover and over 14 million tonnes of glacier ice. 

The report also estimates the emissions impact of the Winter Games three main sponsors: fossil fuel giant Eni, carmaker Stellantis and ITA Airways. According to the analysis, these sponsorship deals will induce an additional 1.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) – about 40% more than the rest of the estimated carbon footprint of the event and enough to melt 3.2 square kilometres of snow cover and cause the loss of over 20 million tonnes of glacier ice. Without a doubt, the continued presence of polluting industries as major sponsors of winter sports is totally untenable.

Check out the full report here. 

POLLING

New Weather Sweden commissioned international polling that reveals an overwhelming public concern about the loss of snow and ice due to global heating, and strong support for ending fossil fuel advertising in winter sports.

The polling, conducted across seven leading winter sports nations in Europe and Canada, shows large majorities of the public, and even bigger majorities of winter sports fans, believe the Olympics and winter sports more broadly should stop advertising companies driving the climate crisis. These findings expose a stark disconnect between the values of audiences and the commercial partnerships underpinning elite winter sport. 

ATHLETE ADVOCACY

The 2026 Winter Games saw an avalanche of athlete advocacy directed at the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Fossil Free Ski brought together winter athletes and organisations to call out the IOC and its sponsorship partnership with fossil fuel Eni. The letter notes that “we believe that by associating winter sports with fossil fuel companies, we risk normalising the connection between our sports and the detrimental effects of the product that they sell”. The signatories “demand that the FIS and IOC publish a report evaluating the acceptability of fossil fuel sponsorships in winter sports competitions by the onset of the 2026/27 season.” Kirsty Coventry, the President of the IOC, issued a response saying that the IOC must “be better” on climate.

A second open letter, from the For Future Games campaign, which landed on 9th February, signed by 88 Olympians and 53 aspiring athletes, urged the IOC to formally exclude fossil fuel companies from future Games sponsorship. The letter draws a deliberate parallel to the IOC's decision to ban tobacco sponsorship ahead of Calgary 1988, asking whether the committee is willing to show similar moral clarity on climate.

Writing in Canada's National Observer, Olympic athletes Andi Naude and Ingrid Liepa made the case simply and powerfully that “sport has faced a similar reckoning before” with tobacco sponsorship. They conclude by stating that “fossil fuels are as incompatible with the survival of winter sports as tobacco is with athletes' health.”

DOCUMENTARY 

Cool Down’s own Matt Rendell pulled together daily reports on the ground at Milano-Cortina during the Games. All of his reports have been collated on Youtube here. 

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If you are keen to get involved with out Winter Olympics campaign work, please contact cooldown@newweather.org