Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 is turning Scope 3 supply chain decarbonisation into a design brief, linking carbon removals, low-carbon fuels and supplier standards to clear net-zero milestones. The team treats its race calendar, factories and supplier base as one integrated emissions system to reach Race Team Control net zero by 2030 and full value-chain net zero by 2040.
Turning a Race Calendar Into a Carbon Architecture
The team has expanded a global carbon removals portfolio built around where it races and manufactures, rather than scattering projects at arm’s length from core activity. Seven new initiatives across Brazil, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark and India add emerging approaches such as direct air capture, biochar, biomass storage, carbon capture and storage, ocean alkalinity enhancement and enhanced rock weathering. Together with existing projects, the package targets about 18,900 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in removals to balance residual emissions after deep cuts.
Project selection and verification run through CUR8, a carbon removal marketplace that applies durability and methodology checks, with additional partners including Frontier, Ecometric and Chestnut Carbon for scale and technical depth. The portfolio follows the Oxford Offsetting Principles, reserving removals for emissions that cannot be eliminated with available technology or process change. This creates a clear hierarchy: reduce energy and logistics emissions first, then apply high-integrity removals to the remainder.
Recent reduction data shows how that hierarchy plays out. Race Team Control emissions were reportedly down 35 percent in 2024 compared with 2022, supported by near-universal use of HVO100 biofuel across European road freight. Aviation, the most stubborn part of race-related travel, now carries sustainable aviation fuel certificates covering roughly 68 percent of flight emissions, avoiding close to 9,860 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. At the Brackley base, heat recovery and electrified systems have removed gas from the energy mix, while a shift to electric company vehicles has cut fuel use by about 26 percent.
These measures align with trends seen in wider transport and industrial networks. Recent trade data indicates that SAF adoption, high-blend biofuels and fleet electrification can deliver double-digit emissions reductions within a few years when backed by procurement rules, route redesign and asset renewal. Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 is applying those same levers under the time pressure and reliability demands of a global race schedule.
Bringing Scope 3 Inside The Supply Network
The team splits its footprint into Race Team Control emissions, covering Scopes 1, 2 and a defined share of Scope 3, and Total emissions, which span the full value chain including purchased goods and services. This structure clarifies which emissions respond directly to decisions on energy, logistics and travel, and which depend on supplier performance, material choices and long-cycle investments.
Supplier engagement carries equal weight with fuel and facility strategy. In 2024, the team convened a sustainability event for small and mid-sized suppliers to explore recycled and bio-based materials, share expectations and expose capability gaps. A new Supplier Code of Conduct and a risk screening tool add explicit environmental criteria and flag potential exposure across tiers, giving procurement and engineering teams structured inputs when awarding work or approving designs.
The approach treats suppliers as collaborators in a shared carbon budget. Participation in sport-wide forums, including an ESG working group and a Supply Chain Sustainability Working Group, extends this model beyond a single team into a common framework for technology vendors, logistics partners and venue operators. Partnerships with logistics and technology firms such as Signify, UBS, Nasdaq, Meta AI and Microsoft expand access to data, digital tooling and infrastructure that can support monitoring, optimisation and reporting at scale.
From a network-design perspective, the sequence of actions is striking. Freight, aviation and site emissions are addressed through measures that also sharpen performance, such as route consolidation, vehicle electrification, smart energy management and heat recovery. Durable removals are then layered on as a distinct, verified inventory rather than used as a shortcut that hides under-investment in structural change.
Industry studies show that Scope 3 emissions from purchased goods and transport often represent more than two-thirds of the footprint in manufacturing and event-based organisations. By assigning those emissions clear expectations through codes, screening tools and shared standards, Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 is turning Scope 3 from a compliance metric into a set of design constraints for engineering, sourcing and logistics.
Net-zero Racing as a Stress Test For Supply Design
A global racing programme compresses decarbonisation decisions into tight lead times, fixed event dates and non-negotiable reliability thresholds. If this combination of targeted reductions, high-integrity removals and codified supplier requirements continues to perform under that stress, similar architectures are likely to spread across more conventional production and distribution networks as climate disclosure rules tighten and capital markets scrutinise Scope 3 performance more closely.
