How Formula 1 can help engineer the world’s net-zero emissions 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 vital signs in early 2010, The McLaren F1 Team has re-engineered the telemetry system It is used to measure the performance of the track for use in the wing.

Now the sport is turning its expertise to global warming. In many respects, climate is more favorable than health care. F1 produced 223,031 metric tons of CO2 equivalent in 2022approximately 75% of which comes from travel and shipping.

Unlike football, which produces more than… 30 million metric tons annually, according to some estimatesF1 has the engineering capabilities necessary to provide solutions. “If we all pull together, we can bring skills, expertise and experience from really extraordinary places, combine them and make a really big difference,” McLaren Sustainability Director Kim Wilson told CNBC.

Those in charge of this sport hope that this diversity of knowledge will accelerate it to zero by 2030. Report Released earlier this year It revealed that the sport has reduced emissions by 13% since 2018 through a combination of strategic measures such as reducing the number of on-site staff at races and increasing reliance on renewable energy. That’s a fast start given that three races have been added to the calendar since 2018, but more will likely be needed to reach net zero by 2030.

The F1 has three pedals to push. The first is regulation, and the sport’s regulatory body has already stipulated that race cars in the 2026 season will need to run on a mix of electricity and synthetic fuels.

“What’s really important is that while we’ve set this target, we haven’t set out how to get there,” Pat Symonds, former Formula One chief technology officer, told CNBC.

“We have five energy companies currently producing fuel for Formula 1, and we want our regulations to encourage competition to find the best way to get there.”

The second pedal is travel. To push it down to earth, Formula 1’s head of ESG, Ellen Jones, told CNBC that the sport needs to reduce the distance between races and reduce the amount of travel required, as well as rethink the modes of transportation used. As reported in April, it is difficult to reconcile these goals with Formula 1’s decision to increase the number of races on its calendar.

If Formula One reduces its overseas trips to a minimum, the sport will have less incentive to deal with the rising emissions of aviation and shipping, which The European Union expects it to account for 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 if no action is taken.

Currently, the sport is investing heavily in developing synthetic fuels that can power not only cars, but planes, boats and heavy agricultural machinery that currently cannot run on electricity. While some Describe this as a “Trojan horse” To continue to pollute and perhaps even support the interests of major petrostate sponsors, the development of synthetic fuels is critical to decarbonizing industries outside of the automobile industry.

The final pedal Formula 1 can push is energy efficiency, and teams are already looking at ways to transfer lessons learned from the track to their infrastructure. “If you look at track performance, we have thousands and thousands of data points…that tell us exactly what’s going on, and that’s where we find marginal gains,” Adam Sammons, Red Bull’s head of sustainability, told CNBC.

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

For all its technological expertise, Formula 1 is not entirely reliant on engineering breakthroughs to reach its goal of net-zero car emissions by 2030. “We are looking to reduce our emissions by at least 50% based on 2018 Baseline. This indicates that any remaining emissions will be ‘offset’ by… Carbon credits or offset agreementswhich was often mocked as an excuse for continued resurgence.

But this is not always the case. Mercedes F1, for example, has begun “the transition from the gold standard of carbon offsetting to decarbonisation.” Through investments at bordersa $1 billion fund that supports promising carbon capture technologies. Sharm Industrial Company is one of the fund’s investmentsIt promises to remove 112,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide within six years by converting agricultural waste into oil that can be pumped underground.

The sport must follow Mercedes’ example. Buying offset agreements may help Formula 1 achieve its net-zero targets, but investing in critical technologies and lending its own engineering capabilities could accelerate global decarbonisation.