Create an eco-friendly league by introducing a K-League carbon management solution, and start operating a sustainable league in earnest
Sep 12, 2025
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The Korea Professional Football Federation established an environmental data management item in the club license standard for the first time among Asian soccer leagues last year, and from this year, it has made it mandatory to measure carbon emissions of all K-League clubs. This is to take the lead in eco-friendly league operation in line with the trend of major overseas leagues such as the German Bundesliga and UEFA club competitions.
As a result, the federation signed an official K-League energy partner business agreement with HD Hyundai Electric in August and agreed to support the club's carbon emissions measurement and management.
First, the federation will work with HD Hyundai Electric to introduce a carbon management solution. This solution helps the team calculate and manage greenhouse gas emissions in detail, and in the long run, supports the establishment of a reduction roadmap for each team.
Prior to the full-scale introduction, the federation conducted training for all K-League team managers on the 10th. The training was conducted by Jeong Seong-pro, a strategic project team of the federation, and Kim Jin-ho, a team leader of AI climate tech company Thingsfire, a partner of HD Hyundai Electric, as a lecturer and guided the team on how to use carbon management solutions and environmental data guidelines to be submitted. The club will have to submit data such as electricity and energy use, water and waste, and future submissions will be expanded.
The federation aims to implement full-fledged carbon emissions reduction in the future based on environmental data from all clubs.
In addition, in cooperation with RST, a global sustainability certification and verification agency, it will publish a 'K League Environmental Sustainability Report' in the first half of next year. This report is expected to be the result of a further development in the K-League Greenhouse Gas Emission Measurement Report published in 2023. At that time, only nine clubs participated in the report due to realistic limitations that most teams do not own stadiums. This time, the federation and HD Hyundai Electric also plan to support accurate carbon emissions measurement and infrastructure improvement for energy efficiency.
In addition, the K-League has consistently participated in international climate action, declaring its vision of an `eco-friendly league' in 2021 and joining the 'S4CA (Sports for Climate Action Framework)" under the UNFCCC (United Nations Climate Change Convention). In the future, the federation will continue to be interested in environmental issues and establish itself as a leading league in sustainability in the sports field.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
