Greenpeace calls out oil and gas giant Eni’s Winter Olympics sponsorship

Greenpeace Italy has launched a hard-hitting video that highlights the absurdity of Italian oil and gas giant Eni’s sponsorships of the Milano Cortina Games, as one of the corporations stealing our winters through its planet-heating pollution.

One year of Eni’s emissions could melt enough glacier ice to fill 2.5 million Olympic swimming pools, demonstrating the corporation’s central role in the climate crisis that threatens the future viability of the Games and winter sports.[1]

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

Greenpeace Italy climate campaigner Federico Spadini said:

“Fossil fuel driven climate change is putting the Winter Olympics and Paralympics at risk and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) cannot ignore this. The Olympic values of respect for people and the environment matter, that’s why Greenpeace is calling for the International Olympic Committee to drop oil and gas sponsorship from the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games and commit to ending fossil fuel sponsorship across all Olympic Games.”

The satirical Greenpeace Italy video, created by Studio Birthplace, shows speed skaters, skiers and bobsledders racing along, with Eni logos prominent. Suddenly a trickle of oil turns into a tsunami, sweeping the athletes off their feet, causing them to slip and crash as a sea of oil washes over them.

The video lays bare the real impact of oil and gas on winter sports, including the Olympics, and warns of the risk of losing them forever without a rapid transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy. More than half of the potential host cities Winter Games will be “climate-unreliable” by the 2080s, according to a rigorous 2024 scientific study funded by the IOC.[1] This is why Greenpeace is calling for the IOC to end fossil fuel sponsorship across the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games and all Olympic Games through an open letter published today.[2]

The IOC has previously used its unique position of global trust and influence to help combat industries that harm people, banning tobacco advertising ahead of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Now it can help lead the shift away from fossil fuels by refusing sponsorship from fossil fuel corporations like Eni who are threatening the winters we all love with their emissions.

To raise awareness of the call for the IOC to reject fossil fuel sponsorship of the Olympic Games, Greenpeace Italy will join a national march organised by civil society organisations in Milan on February 7th to protest the environmental, economic, and social impacts of the Games.

Notes:

[1] The climate crisis and the future of the Winter Olympics

[2] Copy of the open letter

Eni is currently in a legal battle with Greenpeace Italy. In 2023, Greenpeace Netherlands released a study that applied the Mortality Cost of Carbon method, which projected that Eni’s self reported emissions for 2022 alone could cause 27,000 temperature-related excess deaths by the end of the century. Instead of changing their business, Eni attempted to silence these legitimate criticisms by suing Greenpeace Italy.