Uncovering the carbon footprint of sport: a systematic quantitative review of emission sources, methods, and gaps

The sport sector has attracted growing attention for its environmental impact, particularly emissions generated by travel, accommodation, food, and waste. Despite this interest, carbon footprint (CF) research in sport remains fragmented and lacks common, standardised methodologies, leaving important gaps in understanding of what has been studied to date, underscoring the need for a Systematic Quantitative Literature Review. The review analysed 68 peer-reviewed studies to assess the bibliographic, methodological, and contextual characteristics of CF research in sport. The findings reveal that most studies focus on professional football in Europe and North America, with limited attention to community sport or regions such as South America, Africa, and Asia. Travel was consistently the dominant emissions source, followed by accommodation, food, and waste. The absence of standardised measurement approaches creates inconsistencies in boundary setting, emission factor selection, and data sources, which limits both comparability across studies and their relevance for policy. Most studies relied on activity-specific methods and showed little theoretical engagement or follow-up evaluation of proposed mitigation strategies. The review points to a need for standardised, sport-specific CF methodologies and wider coverage of sport types, organisations, and locations, and recommends developing internationally recognised CF frameworks and tools suited to the sector’s complexity.