‘Decarbonisation does not cost seconds on the track’: Mercedes F1 sustainability head on the race to net zero

The glitzy, petrol-guzzling sport is notoriously carbon intensive, burning through the emissions equivalent of 30,000 rich-world homes over the course of a nine-month season. 

But as the shop window for the future of the automotive industry, F1 has responded to pressure to curb its carbon footprint. In 2019, F1 promised to be carbon neutral by 2030, a target some say is unrealistic given the sport’s ongoing expansion and continued reliance on hydrocarbons as fuel, even as its electric version, Formula E, gains popularity.

The sport has been racing to decarbonise in a variety of ways. From reorganising the race calendar to limit its biggest source of emissions – the logistics of moving the sport across 21 countries in a season – to cutting out single-use plastic at races, and recycling tyres.

But the sport’s main focus has been on adopting more sustainable fuels. F1 has said its cars will run on “100 per cent sustainable fuel” by 2026, using fuel sourced from biomass or green hydrogen, burning carbon that is already available rather than putting more into the atmosphere.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 became the first team to trial hydrotreated vegetable oil to transport its cars, equipment, and staff. The team represented on the track by Lewis Hamilton and George Russell is aiming to cut its emissions by two-thirds by 2030 and achieve net zero across its supply chain by 2040. The team’s recently released sustainability report reported a 10 per cent drop in emissions.

Joining the Eco-Business to discuss how the sport can reach the net zero finishing line in just six years is Mercedes F1’s head of sustainability, Alice Ashpitel. 

Alice Ashpitel, head of sustainability, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team

Tune in as we discuss:

• Why an earth sciences graduate chose to work in F1
• What has been driving down Mercedes F1’s emissions?
• How sustainable is sustainable aviation fuel?
• Is sustainability accepted in F1 culture?
• Which solutions are missing to decarbonise F1?
• The elephant in the room: logistics and travel
• Fossil fuels sponsorship and reputational risk
• Is F1’s net zero by 2030 goal realistic?
• Will Formula E make Formula 1 obsolete?

The edited podcast transcript:

Your educational background is in the sciences, then you worked in a sustainability role in the built environment. What drew you to F1?

I started my studies in earth sciences, and was really drawn to climate science in particular. I loved studying. But I wanted to take that scientific background and apply it in the real world.

After graduation, I looked around at where some of big sustainability challenges were. And construction really leapt out to me. So that’s where I started off – boots on the ground, wearing a hard hat, walking around construction sites, trying to understand the environmental challenges of those sites.

As I progressed a little bit, I started to look into how we could design better buildings and operate them more efficiently. We know that the built environment is really key to net zero targets. We started to develop strategies [to decarbonise] property portfolios. I really enjoyed that. But what I really wanted to do was actually be in an organisation where I could instigate change but see it all the way through to completion.

In parallel to that, I have always been an F1 fan. I started to see a lot of the conversation around net zero and Formula 1 emerge, and I started to see Formula 1 pushing the boundaries of sustainability. And then this job came up with Mercedes. It was the perfect moment for me to take all the skills I’ve built and apply them in an area that I’m really passionate about.

The Mercedes team 1 recently reported a big drop in emissions. What has been the single most effective measure your team has taken to slash emissions?

Our priority has been on our biggest and most visible sources of emissions – which is what we call our race team control emissions. This doesn’t include the purchase of goods and services, but it includes the business travel, the logistics, the freight – the movement of people and items around the world to allow us to go racing.

We’ve been focusing on a sustainable fuel strategy, and looking at how we can effectively decarbonise transport in that area. So investment in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has been really critical for us. We were able to reduce emissions by over 6,600 tonnes of CO2 last year through investment in SAF.

We announced the beginning of our journey in SAF back in 2022. And we’ve been working on growing our investment and volume, because we recognise that this market is critical for aviation decarbonisation as a whole. But it needs people in the voluntary space to come in and invest in the sector and start to use a book and claim model [book and claim means the buyer does not physically burn the fuel, but their purchase supports its use elsewhere, which helps boost demand. In return, they may claim the reduced emissions towards their voluntary net zero goals].

Fuels make up about 1 per cent of F1’s emissions. There’s been pushback at the claims made around sustainable fuels and whether they can genuinely reduce emissions. How do you respond to those criticisms?

You’re right. The cars themselves are less than 1 per cent of the emissions of the sport. They use an E10 blend [a low carbon fuel containing 10 per cent ethanol that lowers traditional petrol emissions] for a number of years now – which is a first step in reducing emissions.

The other thing about the cars which is really impressive, is their engine efficiency. Being both hybrid and already some of the world’s most thermally efficient engines, that speaks to Formula 1’s potential to innovate road car technologies.

For example, the EQXX, which Mercedes launched a little while back, incorporated a lot of lessons from battery efficiency technologies developed in Brixworth [a town in Northamptonshire, England], where we develop our F1 power units. We took a lot of the aerodynamic knowledge and lightweighting from Formula 1, but also knowledge from other Mercedes R&D, to do over 1,000 miles on a single charge. So there’s an example of F1 innovation that leads into the road car space.

On sustainable fuels, we believe they are a really key step in the [energy] transition. Internal combustion engines are still going to be on the road in 2030 regardless. 2026 will be a really exciting moment for the sport, because that’s when we’re going to be 50 per cent electric and 50 per cent advanced sustainable fuel. That fuel will be 100 per cent sustainably sourced, made either through carbon capture technologies, second generation biofuels and waste processes. That’s when the cars will be fossil fuel-free. The technology will be “drop-in,” meaning it is compatible with regular road vehicles. Our priority when developing sustainable technologies is their usability beyond just F1 cars.

SAF is important to us because it integrates with our existing technologies, allowing us to make changes today to start driving the solutions we need. The fuel that will be ready in 2026 has the potential for road use, having been tested in the most rigorous setting – Formula 1.

Decarbonisation is a race against time. To what extent would you say that Mercedes is winning the race to decarbonise F1? How much do you look at your competitors and look at the technologies they’re using to figure out how Mercedes is tracking?

Yes, decarbonisation is a critical race and I think it’s critical across all industries.

For us, it’s really important that we’re delivering sustainable high performance and innovation, but that we’re also doing it in a way that allows us to decarbonise quickly.

A big thing for us is decoupling our resource consumption from our growth. So we are looking at how we can do things more efficiently.

F1 has some very ambitious targets. And we welcome collaboration with other teams. For example, last year they did the first trial of a centralised power system at the Austrian Grand Prix to see how we could power all 10 teams on an HVO [hydrotreated vegetable oil] system backed with solar panels.

The collaboration piece is really important for the sport because we all need to get there together. And personally we’re a team of problem solvers. We love a challenge. And there is a personal drive to be the leaders in this space.

That’s why things like our investment in SAF has been critical for us. We’re now starting to feed the knowledge that we’ve gained from what is a very complicated process – understanding the book and claim market, how to be really credible and transparent in this space – and share that knowledge with other teams.

Then we also look for the next space to innovate. Being leaders in this space, we need to be really honest about what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what’s next – how do we keep pushing the envelope?

Do you get together with heads of sustainability in other teams to talk about what you’re doing and share ideas?

Yes, definitely. I’ve really noticed a change in that in the last two and a half years since I’ve been with the team – that we are really open to collaboration on sustainability.

I know my counterparts at all of the teams. We meet in London at the Formula 1 offices, or virtually and talk about the various aspects of the sport, for example sharing knowledge about SAF or the circular economy. Formula 1 is an incredibly competitive environment, so it’s really positive to see that willingness to collaborate.

What’s it like being a head of sustainability in a culture like F1? Is there a sense that sustainability costs seconds on the track? 

What’s special about Formula 1 is that we sit at the intersection of sport and technology. We’ve got a team of people who love to win and love a really tough, complex challenge. If you think about decarbonisation and sustainability, those are the ingredients we need. We need people who are willing to go, “This is hard, but I think I can come up with some great ideas and I love the idea of winning.”

People in the factory are fascinated by our work. Staff message me to ask if they’re creating too much plastic waste from the processes they’re working on, all the way to looking at the logistics of moving parts around the world, while recognising that the team is under pressure going into a “triple-header” [three back-to-back races].

The team is committed to sourcing HVO for all of our trucks. We’re targeting 100 per cent HVO across the European season and are able to work with the entire supply chain logistics team to deliver on that target. So actually there’s a great appetite for sustainability, which isn’t seen as something that costs performance, but is something that can give high performance and is embedded across the culture.

You’ve said that the most difficult thing about your job is that not all the solutions you need to decarbonise F1 exist today. What solutions are missing?

So it’s a real blend. More work is needed on sustainable fuels, for example. With aviation fuels, the HEFA [hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids] pathway is very clearly developed, which is one methodology for producing SAF. But we know there’s not enough of that for it to become limitless.

So part of the work is on how we help that sector scale new technologies like e-SAF [which is produced through the combination of green hydrogen with CO2 captured from the atmosphere or biogenic sources], and other types of SAF that we need to see come through.

Beyond sustainable fuels, the materials the cars are built from are some of the most technical and high performance materials known to science. How do we start collaborating with the supply chain to make carbon fiber more circular and less carbon intensive?

How do we look at all these challenges and support this industry as a whole to get there? A lot of the materials we use aren’t unique to Formula 1. Aerospace, for example, is another big sector that will use these materials.

The other crucial factor is cutting our race team control emissions by 75 per cent by 2030. We will have some residual emissions, and recognise that credible high-quality carbon removals will be key in addressing those effectively. 

In order for those credible removals to exist, we need to be supporting that sector now and doing the research, working with different suppliers to find out what works and what doesn’t, so that we can help the market grow as well.

Because actually, there are a lot of ideas – it’s about how we scale them and give them a platform, so that the credible ones can attract the investment and support needed.

The elephant in the room for F1 is where the bulk of the emissions come from – the logistics of lugging a huge operation around the world for nine months of the year. Plus, the sport is still expanding. Surely, if F1 is serious about decarbonisation, it will need to change its business model and cut the number of races in a season?

Our mission at Mercedes is to decouple emissions from growth [of the sport]. So our work has been really focused on efficiency as the calendar has grown.

For example, we’ve increased the use of sea freight over air, which required us to invest in an extra sea freight kit so we could ship more items at the start of the season, reducing the amount of equipment we needed to fly in.

And Formula 1 as a whole is really looking at this. They’ve already made some changes in the calendar this season. For example the Japan Grand Prix has been moved so that it’s much closer to the Australian and Chinese Grand Prix. 

Do you think that your typical, F1 fan really cares about the climate impact of the sport, and is that a factor in driving the decarbonisation of the sport?

I think it’s a really interesting moment for the sport. I don’t think you can underestimate the impact of [Netflix documentary] Drive to survive on the sport’s fan base. We’re seeing an immense growth in the fan base and also a much younger, more socially conscious audience come into the sport as a result of the documentary and its positive impact.

We’ve actually done some research on perceptions and attitudes among fans and found that 75 per cent of Mercedes F1 fans are willing to make more sustainable choices track side, if they are available to them. And we’re seeing particularly that our fans are over indexing on some of the other teams. So the sustainability message is trickling down into the fan consciousness. They are passionate about being able to enjoy their sport, but also want to know that their sport isn’t negatively impacting the environment and that it’s having a positive influence beyond itself.

A contentious area of F1 are the sponsors – the branding F1 drivers carry, for example, Saudi Aramco, world’s biggest oil and gas company, and Petronas, which is tied to Mercedes. Petronas is a company that Eco-Business has written a lot in terms of setting climate targets that have been called out for greenwashing. To what extent do you think that carries a reputational risk for a company like Mercedes that’s trying to decarbonise its F1 team and carrying that association with a company like Petronas?

We’ve had a really long-standing partnership with Petronas, that has been crucial in exploring our biofuels project. Their knowledge and expertise has been critical in sourcing biofuels across the European season. Hopefully we’ll achieve 100 per cent biofuels across the European season this year with their help. They are the first team to develop the advanced sustainable fuel for 2026. So really innovating and developing the drop-in fuel that’s going to help drive the cars of the future.

F1’s net zero by 2030 ambition. Some would say ambitious, others would say unrealistic. Do you think the sport can really get there?

I’m on the ambitious-but-achievable side here. I think it is fantastic to see sport leading the way [on decarbonisation]. It is incredibly ambitious and the answers are not all available today. But put a load of engineers and a load of people really passionate about winning in a room and tell them this is the goal … we will see the teams drive towards that.

We’ve achieved a 10 per cent reduction in our race team’s controlled emissions, and our employees are changing commuting habits – adopting lift-sharing and electric vehicles to lower our footprint. Innovations in freight and logistics also contribute to these savings. Although ambitious, our targets remain achievable.

Do you believe that the future of the sport will be fossil fuel-based? Won’t the success of Formula E, the electric version of the sport, eventually make Formula 1 obsolete one day?

I think all the teams share the belief that Formula 1 has the potential to be an innovation hub for sustainable solutions. And advanced sustainable fuel will still be relevant for road cars through 2030 and beyond, keeping us at the forefront of change. 

We have a massively engaged fan base and this amazing potential to drive innovation. F1 is one of the fastest growing sports globally. For us, it’s about enabling the sport to continue to grow sustainably and still drive exciting results week after week.

And actually, advanced sustainable fuels is just the tip of the iceberg. Underneath, it’s wholesale change for us as a team and everything that we do, to embed sustainability.

But I’m also really refreshed to see that happening across the sport and in other teams. If you’d asked us two years ago, we were all quite nervous about sharing. But now it feels like this sharing and collaboration is what’s going to drive the sport forward.