Oil giant Winter Olympic sponsor melting the snow winter sports depend on
The fossil fuel industry is back on the Olympic podium - this time as a sponsor of the Winter Games. New research reveals that Eni, the Italian oil giant and official partner of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, is melting the very snow and glaciers winter sports depend on.
Based on scientific links between greenhouse gas emissions and snow/ice loss, the analysis estimates that the annual climate pollution from Eni’s fossil fuel operations is causing the loss of 985 km² of snow cover and 6.2 billion tonnes of glacier ice. Campaigners say Eni is using its Olympic partnership to greenwash a business model that directly threatens the future of the Games.
The report, from the New Weather Institute and Badvertising campaign, shows that every €1 of sponsorship spent with Eni generates 63.5 kg of CO₂e. With the company’s Olympic deal estimated at €15 million, that adds up to 953,000 tonnes of carbon pollution, or roughly the same as burning over 2 million barrels of oil.
Eni, which is partly state-owned, was announced as a “Premium Partner” of the Milano Cortina Games in 2023. It continues to push new fossil fuel projects in the Mediterranean and beyond, even as scientists warn time is running out to avoid irreversible climate breakdown.
Snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere during May has shrunk by 4.8 million km² since 1970 - a loss of land the size of India. Meanwhile, over 8,000 gigatonnes of glacier ice have melted worldwide since 1976, raising seas and intensifying extreme weather. That loss is accelerating - and directly threatens the future of snow sports.
Campaigners are urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to show the same moral clarity it did in 1988, when tobacco sponsorship was banned from the Winter Olympics in Calgary after public health harms became undeniable.
“Eni’s sponsorship of the Winter Games undermines the values central to the Olympic movement while directly impacting the viability of winter sports,” said Anna Jonsson of Save Our Snow and New Weather Sweden. “We urge them to heed the call from António Guterres to drop polluting ads and sponsorships — as tobacco, fossil fuel ads have no place in the honorable Olympic movement.”
Björn Sandström, a Swedish Olympic hopeful: "I’m dedicating the coming months to chasing my dream of competing in my first Olympics in Milano—a true honour. But as a winter athlete watching my sport vanish beneath my feet due to climate change, it breaks my heart to know I’d be standing beneath the Olympic rings alongside a fossil fuel sponsor. The Games should inspire climate action, not excuse climate damage.”