How F1 can help engineer the world’s net-zero future

Formula One has always tried to be more than just a good sport.

When Britain’s National Health Service needed accurate ways to monitor children’s vitals signs in the early 2010s, F1 team McLaren re-engineered the telemetric system it used to measure track performance for use on the ward.

Now the sport is turning its expertise to global warming. In many ways climate is a more obvious fit than health care. F1 produced 223,031 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2022, with almost 75% coming from travel and shipping.

Unlike soccer, which produces more than 30 million metric tons per year by some estimates, F1 has the engineering capabilities to provide solutions. “If we all lean in together, we can bring in skills, expertise and experience from really unusual places, combine them and make a really big difference,” McLaren’s Director of Sustainability Kim Wilson told CNBC.

The sport’s bosses are hoping this cognitive diversity can accelerate them to net zero by 2030. A report released earlier this year revealed the sport had reduced emissions by 13% since 2018 through a mix of strategic measures such as reducing on-site personnel at races and increasing reliance on renewable energy. This is a fast start considering three races have been added to the calendar since 2018, but much more will likely be needed to be net zero by 2030.

F1 has three pedals to push. The first is regulation, and the sport’s watchdog has already mandated that cars racing in the 2026 season will need to be powered by a mix of electricity and synthetic fuels.

“What’s really important is that while we defined that objective, we didn’t define how you get to that objective,” F1’s former Chief Technology Officer Pat Symonds told CNBC.

“We’ve got five energy companies currently producing fuel for Formula One, and we want our regulation to encourage competition to find the best way of getting there.”

The second pedal is travel. To push it to the floor, Ellen Jones, F1’s head of ESG, told CNBC that the sport needs to reduce the distance between races and cut the amount of travel needed, as well rethinking the modes of transportation used. As reported in April, these goals are difficult to square with F1’s decision to increase the number of races in its calendar.

If F1 were to reduce its overseas travel to a minimum, the sport would have less incentive to tackle the growing emissions profile of aviation and shipping, which the EU expects to account for 40% of global CO2 emissions by 2050 if no action is taken.

As it is, the sport is investing heavily in the development of synthetic “drop-in” fuels which can not only power cars but planes, boats and heavy agricultural machinery which can’t currently run on electricity. While some describe this as a “trojan horse” to continue polluting and perhaps even prop up the interests of big petro-state sponsors, the development of synthetic fuels is critical to decarbonizing industries outside automotive.

The final pedal F1 can push is energy efficiency, and teams are already looking for ways to transfer learnings from the track to their infrastructure. “If you look at track performance we’ve got thousands and thousands of data points … that tell us exactly what’s happening, and that’s where we’re finding marginal gains,” Red Bull’s Head of Sustainability Adam Sammons told CNBC.

“We want to take that approach … and apply it to the building and infrastructure side of the campus as well.” This has led Red Bull to integrate new smart energy management systems and develop new ways to capture and recycle waste heat from its manufacturing facility.

Despite all of its technological expertise however, F1 is not relying wholly on engineering breakthroughs to reach its 2030 net zero target. “We’re looking to cut our emissions by a minimum of 50% based on our 2018 baseline,” Jones told CNBC. This suggests that any remaining emissions will be “offset” through carbon credits or offset agreements, which have often been derided as an excuse to continue emitting.

This is not always the case, however. Mercedes F1, for example, has started to “transition from gold standard carbon offsetting to carbon removal” through investments in Frontier, a billion dollar fund that backs promising carbon capture technologies. Charm Industrial, one of the fund’s investments, promises to remove 112,000 metric tons of CO2 within six years by converting agricultural waste into oil that can be pumped underground.

The sport should follow Mercedes’ lead. Purchasing offset agreements may help F1 reach its net zero goals, but investing in critical technologies and lending its own engineering capabilities can accelerate global decarbonization.