Processes of Greenwashing, Virtue Signalling, and Sportwashing in Contemporary Formula One
Damion Sturm
Abstract
Operating as one of the most expensive, media-centric, and global sports, Formula One is ripe for analysis due to an array of contemporary issues. Specifically, despite wide-ranging sustainability initiatives, Formula One provides self-promotional ‘green-washing' strategies that maintain a large carbon footprint and cause environmental destruction. Moreover, Formula One can be accused of virtue signalling by proposing to challenge diversity and inclusion in a sport that has steadfastly remained white, elitist, and male. Finally, the precarious nature of human rights within some of the emerging host nations further exposes the potential hypocrisy of Formula One's virtue signalling, while leading to accusations of sportwashing by authoritarian regimes. It is these processes of greenwashing, virtue signalling, and sportwashing that will be probed in this chapter.