Formula 1 cars account for about 1% of the championship’s carbon footprint: the largest share comes from travel (39%) and logistics (33%). In 2025 F1 reported 148,805 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, 35% less than in 2018 and 12% less than in 2024, and aims for net zero emissions by 2030. But the official figure does not include fans’ travel, which according to outside estimates weighs far more.

Updated in October 2026.

When people talk about Formula 1’s environmental impact, the image that comes back is always the same: single-seaters burning fuel at a frantic pace. It is an effective image and largely a wrong one, and the best way to see it is to look at where the emissions really end up. This article takes the four most widespread myths and sets them against the numbers of the sustainability report F1 published in June 2026, covering the 2025 season, without hiding what those numbers do not say.

Myth 1: it is the cars that pollute most

They are not. In 2025 the power units (the engines) account for about 1% of the championship’s carbon footprint. The rest, by source, is this:

• business travel: 39%;
• logistics: 33%;
• event operations: 14%;
• factories and facilities: 14%;
• power units: 1%.

Logistics and travel together therefore account for about three quarters of the total: what weighs is moving people, equipment and television facilities every year for all the Grands Prix on the calendar. The 2025 total is 148,805 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, against 168,720 in 2024.

Myth 2: F1 is doing nothing to reduce its impact

The numbers say otherwise. Compared with the 2018 baseline the footprint has fallen by 35%, and the report credits almost 80,000 tonnes of CO2 avoided over eight years to emission cuts across the sport’s various functions. Travel emissions are down 27%, logistics 29% (21% less than in 2024), factories and facilities 64%. Among the 2025 measures: the doubled investment in sustainable aviation fuel, the first investment in sustainable maritime fuel, hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) and solar at European events, electric and biofuel trucks, regional equipment hubs and a calendar reorganised to cut journeys. By 2030 F1 expects to take more than half of the transport of television equipment and related freight off aircraft.

Myth 3: F1 is useless for sustainable innovation

Since 2014 the cars have been hybrid and, from 2026, the engine regulations go further. The new power units use advanced sustainable fuels, with the carbon coming from non-food sources, municipal waste or the atmosphere and not from new oil, and electrical energy reaches about 50% of the power: the MGU-K triples to about 350 kW, the MGU-H is eliminated and the amount of fuel per Grand Prix falls to 70 kg, against 100 in 2020 and 160 in 2013. F1 speaks of net zero CO2 emissions at the exhaust: it should be made clear that the expression refers to the exhaust, not the whole life cycle.

Myth 4: it would be enough to switch everything to electric

The question confuses two different purposes. Formula E exists to advance electric vehicles; F1 to push car technology to the limit, and today it does so on sustainable fuels and more efficient engines, an area where progress can also reach the combustion engines still in circulation. How sustainability is changing F1 and MotoGP sponsorships is told in F1, MotoGP and the green revolution.

What the official data do not say

An honest account must include the limit of the report: the footprint declared by F1 concerns the championship’s operations and not the travel of those who attend the Grands Prix. An estimate by Greenly, a carbon accounting company, calculates that spectators’ travel in 2023 alone produced about 655,600 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, almost four times the declared operational footprint, and that the overall footprint would be about 1.04 million tonnes, six times the official figure. It is an estimate by a third party, not a measurement by F1, and should be read as an order of magnitude. But it shows where the game is really played: in transport, not on the straight.

What it means for a sponsor

For those who sponsor, the numbers matter because sustainability claims must be backed by data: tying a brand to an F1 that really reduces its footprint is an advantage, associating it with generic slogans is a reputational risk. Anyone considering entering will find the thresholds in the guide to the cost of Formula 1 sponsorship.

Sources: Autosport, F1’s 2026 emissions report; Statista, F1’s carbon footprint in 2025; Air Cargo Week, F1 cuts its footprint through sustainable logistics; IANS, F1 on course for net zero by 2030; Formula 1, the 2026 engine regulations; Greenly, F1’s real carbon footprint; ESG Dive, the 2022 emissions report.