DECARBONISATION
“ There’ s a couple of markets where we have a supplier that might satisfy certain needs,” says Maria.
“ Other times the schedule doesn’ t always allow for it and we need to have different suppliers. We really try to keep them as local to the tournament as possible, which obviously makes sense, especially when we’ re thinking about freight and hauling. We don’ t really want big bits of equipment being moved around,” Maria explains.
This logistical complexity across borders also creates sustainability challenges and a major environmental footprint. Maria explains how the tour organisers restructured the annual schedule into regional clusters known as“ global swings”. Grouping tournaments geographically cuts total flight distances for players, event staff and commercial partners.
“ Since we introduced that, we’ ve seen an 18 % reduction in player travel across the schedule, which also then has knockons to what we do from a staff travel and procurement perspective in terms of bringing in those travel policies,” Maria says.
Cutting transit through remote production On top of the on-site alternative energy and route planning, technology also plays a central role in reducing international freight and personnel transit. Broadcast operations traditionally required shipping heavy equipment trucks and flying large technical crews to every tournament venue.
By establishing central broadcast facilities in London’ s Stockley Park and standardising remote production models, the European Tour Group reduced its physical presence on the ground. Technical teams can now operate core broadcast infrastructure remotely from the UK.“ We had 11 remote productions in 2025 and each of those saves around 87 tons of carbon, which is big,” Maria says.“ It’ s cumulative, isn’ t it? It adds up.“ I think that removed over two million miles of flights that would have been taken. So it’ s a significant impact when you tally it all up.”
Measuring data across global markets Tracking emissions and verifying environmental improvements across varied jurisdictions requires a consistent data collection framework. The European Tour Group tracks operational metrics across a core group of about 10 events to ensure data continuity across seasons. At each tracked event, Maria’ s sustainability team manually audits between 80 and 100 site suppliers. Data points covering power consumption, fuel use, waste recovery and transport movements are collected and measured against standard emission factors. To assist local operational teams in applying these standards, the European Tour Group created a Sustainable Championship Charter. The framework outlines clear targets across waste management, water conservation and energy use without using overly complex technical information.
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