Protect Our Winters Nordics Calls for an End to All Fossil Fuel Sponsorship in Snow Sports
Winter sports are already being significantly affected by the climate crisis. Rising temperatures and shrinking snowfall threaten the very existence of the sports we love. Yet, despite this stark reality, fossil fuel companies continue to embed themselves in winter sports through sponsorships with sports governing bodies, national teams, and events.
This must stop.
The FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Trondheim, Norway, is a glaring example of this contradiction. One of its main sponsors is Equinor, Norway’s state-owned oil and gas giant—an industry fueling the climate breakdown that endangers winter sports. Norway’s national ski team is also currently sponsored by Equinor, just as Finland’s national team is backed by St1—a company still heavily reliant on fossil fuels. While Preem, Sweden’s largest oil company, is the main sponsor for Vasaloppet, the longest, biggest, and oldest national cross-country ski race.
The numbers are conclusive.
According to the Dirty Snow report, for every euro spent on fossil fuel sponsorships, up to 100 kg of CO2 is released into the atmosphere. The emissions from just six major winter sports sponsors—Ford, SAS, Equinor, Aker, Volvo, and Preem—are responsible for melting nearly 2,000 square kilometers of spring snow each year. That’s an area larger than New York City, lost annually due to the very companies that claim to support winter sports. The report states that these same corporations are trying to green- and sport-wash themselves as climate-friendly.
Fossil fuel sponsorship in snow sports should be as unacceptable as tobacco and alcohol sponsorship in public health campaigns. Any claim that winter sports organizations are climate leaders is empty if they continue to take fossil money.
Many of our snow sports athletes who are willing to speak up for climate action are forced to wear these logos. They train in nature’s winter beauty, knowing it is disappearing, while their gear and event banners tell a different story—one they never chose to endorse.
Our Call to Action
Sports Must Lead the Way to a Sustainable Future
There is another path. Sports—especially winter sports—must be part of the solution, not the problem. They have immense power to drive societal change, inspire climate action, and protect the future of snowy winters. Athletes, governing bodies, fans, and event organizers all have a crucial role to play in this transformation.
Protect Our Winters has worked to increase the carbon handprint of sports—helping organizations move beyond minimizing harm to actively driving positive change. This means adopting real sustainability strategies, improving climate messaging, and using their platform to inspire systemic transformation.
Based on this work, Protect Our Winters Nordics has identified key actions. Calling on all winter sport organizations, national federations, international governing bodies, event organizers, and athletes to actively focus on achieving these targets.
How to lead the way.
Key actions winter sports organisations must take:
- Reject all fossil fuel sponsorships – There is no place for fossil fuel companies in a sustainable sports future. Sports must urgently develop climate-friendly sponsorship strategies that align with their values and the science of climate action.
- Advocate for systemic change. Sports organizations must actively push for climate action and policies that align with science-based targets. Cutting ties with the fossil fuel industry should be a fundamental part of their advocacy.
- Embrace climate leadership. Move beyond carbon neutrality and use the platform of sports to embrace carbon handprint thinking and other regenerative strategies that create real impact.
Sports have the power to lead by example. Imagine a future where snow sports thrive in snowy landscapes—free from fossil fuel sponsorship—where the sports community leads the change needed to stop climate breakdown.
Protect Our Winters stands for imperfect advocacy—we acknowledge that climate action is a journey. But when it comes to fossil fuel sponsorships and legitimizing an industry that is destroying winter as we know it, there is no nuance. This is simply unacceptable.
It is not climate activists who threaten the future of snow sports—it is the fossil fuel industry. And it’s time to cut them out.
Protect Our Winters Sweden
Protect OUr Winters Finland
Protect Our Winters Norway
