A few years ago, the marketing director of a manufacturing company told me he would never consider a sponsorship in Formula 1 or MotoGP. His reason: pollution. He said this over a business lunch in Milan, after driving about a hundred kilometres to meet me. The fruit served to us arrived, as I discovered by asking the waiter, from South Africa and Chile.

I said nothing. But that meeting has stayed with me, because it captures almost perfectly the problem many brands face when approaching motorsport: it is not a question of pollution in absolute terms. It is a question of consistency. And consistency, in 2025, has become the most critical variable for any brand seeking to build a credible ESG positioning without exposing itself to the risk of greenwashing.

The Aramco paradox: more honest than it looks

In 2021, Formula 1 signed a sponsorship agreement with Aramco, the world’s largest oil company. The reaction was predictable: sportswashing, hypocrisy, betrayal of climate goals. Greenpeace has repeatedly targeted the presence of fossil fuel-linked sponsors in the Formula 1 paddock.

There is, however, another reading. Aramco and Shell are precisely the type of company that should be sitting at the table of motorsport’s energy transition — because they are the ones funding research into synthetic fuels. The 100% sustainable fuel that Formula 1 will adopt from the 2026 season is the direct product of these partnerships. It is not a press release. It is a technical specification validated by the FIA, adopted by all power unit manufacturers — Ferrari, Mercedes, Honda, Renault — and verifiable in the sporting regulations.

Translated into commercial language: the same industry accused of polluting is paying to develop the technology that could make it obsolete. That is called industrial transition, not greenwashing. The distinction matters, and CMOs who ignore it risk missing one of the most credible sustainability narratives available in the market today.

The numbers that are rarely cited

The environmental footprint of Formula 1 was quantified by F1 itself at approximately 256,551 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per season, according to the sustainability report published in 2023. To frame the scale: the global commercial aviation industry produces approximately 800 million tonnes of CO₂ per year. The textile and fashion sector is responsible, according to UNEP estimates, for approximately 10% of global industrial emissions — more than all aviation and maritime transport combined.

Anyone who uses the environmental impact of Formula 1 or MotoGP as an argument against sponsoring these series is using a decontextualised reference. And it is precisely this inconsistency — not motorsport — that creates ESG positioning problems.

On the transition front: MotoGP announced the adoption of 40% certified sustainable fuels in 2024, with a path towards 100% by 2027. Honda and Yamaha are investing in electric prototype development for feeder categories. These are verifiable industrial commitments, not statements of intent.

Three mistakes brands keep making

I have identified three recurring mistakes among marketing directors navigating the ESG question in motorsport.

The first mistake is rejecting motorsport for environmental reasons while maintaining a sponsorship portfolio in sports that are equally energy-intensive and logistically heavy. European football has an enormous logistical footprint. The visibility of the problem is not proportional to its scale — motorsport is visible, which is why it ends up under the spotlight. But visibility and impact are not the same thing.

The second mistake is facade greenwashing: associating with a team or a motorsport series and merely communicating the championship’s green commitments without integrating that narrative into the brand’s own product strategy. If F1’s synthetic fuels have nothing to do with what the brand produces or sells, the message is empty. Worse: it is counterproductive, because it increases the risk of critical exposure without building anything real.

The third mistake is waiting. In 2025, the leading ESG rating agencies — Sustainalytics, MSCI ESG, CDP — actively assess the sporting partnerships of listed brands as part of reputational risk analysis. A sponsorship agreement with a property that has no verifiable sustainability roadmap can negatively impact the ESG score, with effects on the cost of capital and stock market valuation. It is no longer a communications issue: it is a governance issue.

How to build a coherent ESG narrative in motorsport

There is no universal formula, but there is a method. What we use with our clients always starts from the same point: verify the alignment between the brand’s values and those of the property before opening any commercial negotiation.

Three questions to ask before signing any motorsport agreement when the ESG question is relevant to the board:

First: does the property have a verifiable and publicly accessible sustainability roadmap? Not a generic statement of intent, but a plan with measurable milestones. The Formula 1 Net Zero Carbon 2030 exists as an official document. MotoGP’s decarbonisation plan is public.

Second: can the brand’s product or service dialogue with that roadmap credibly? If the answer requires too many narrative contortions to become yes, the ESG risk outweighs the visibility benefit.

Third: is the brand willing to do more than appear? Technological integration — shared R&D, supply chain, co-branding on specific components — builds a story of coherence that a logo on a livery cannot build alone. Buy the software running in production, not the demo for the keynote.

Consistency is the answer, not the veto

The marketing director I had lunch with years ago was not wrong to raise the environmental question. He was wrong to treat it as an absolute veto rather than a variable to be managed with method.

In 2025, the brands building the most credible ESG narratives in motorsport are not those that avoided the sector out of environmental scruple. They are those that negotiated agreements with real technological integration clauses and that chose the right property — not necessarily the largest or most visible, but the one whose transition journey dialogued with their own.

If you are evaluating a motorsport sponsorship and the consistency question concerns you, that concern is legitimate. But the answer is not to stay out. It is to enter with the right questions.

Consistency is not declared. It is built. Always.

Yours sincerely,
Riccardo Tafà — Managing Director, RTR Sports Marketing

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