The sustainability strategy for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 will change the way tournaments and various major sporting events are organized in the future, and will work to establish a sustainable legacy that contributes to promoting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Qatar National Vision 2030.

In this regard, Eng. Abdul Rahman Al-Muftah, Sustainability and Environment Expert at the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, noted that the State of Qatar is seeking to reach what is known as "carbon neutrality" during hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar by achieving four main goals, which are raising the level of awareness of individuals, and the main partners and their involvement in efforts to achieve this goal, knowing the carbon stock resulting from the activities related to the championship, identifying the most important sources of carbon emissions and international standards to reduce these emissions, and conducting a carbon budget by investing in green and environmentally friendly projects.

Al-Muftah explained that the Qatar World Cup will witness a great demand from fans to use public transportation, especially the Doha metro network, pointing out that the advanced transport network, including trams and a fleet of energy-saving buses, will play an important role in reducing carbon emissions, in addition to the electric buses that will be used during the tournament. Tournament duration.

The Ministry of Communications has prepared model plans and programs that balance between achieving the goal of organizing the first World Cup free of carbon emissions, and the country's general strategy and the Qatar Vision 2030, which includes a gradual shift to the use of electric means of transportation and renewable energy, especially in the transportation sector, in order to achieve the required percentage to reduce the rate of harmful carbon emissions. It is caused by traditional transportation, in addition to achieving concerted efforts to preserve environmental sustainability.

The transportation network is one of the main axes in hosting the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, as Qatar has made a huge leap in the development of this sector over the past years, and the total investments of the public transport network during the past few years amounted to 84 billion riyals, including 66.5 billion riyals in the development of the Doha metro network. 13.5 billion riyals for the development of the Lusail Tram and 4 billion riyals for the electric bus infrastructure.

In order to reduce the number of public transport cars and buses on the streets, the public transport system has been developed, including the Doha Metro, new bus lanes, and tram systems in Lusail City and Education City, as well as replacing 25 percent of public buses with electric buses for use during the tournament, and all This is in order to reduce greenhouse gases and air pollution.

Last April, the Ministry of Transportation received the last batch of 130 electric buses, thus completing the supply of all 741 electric buses to be used during the tournament, and later to become a permanent legacy for mass transportation of clean energy after the World Cup.

In order to reach carbon neutrality in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, Qatar benefited during its journey to host the first close-distance edition in the modern history of the World Cup from its geographical nature, as the longest distance between two World Cup stadiums does not exceed 75 km, which will allow visitors Fans have the opportunity to stay in one residence throughout the tournament without incurring the trouble of traveling from one city to another.

Five of the World Cup stadiums are connected to the Doha Metro, which acts as a link between the stadiums, while fans can reach the other three stadiums through buses designated for this purpose.

The advantages of the close-distance nature of the Qatar World Cup are not limited to providing comfort to fans and not having to travel long distances between stadiums, as well as providing the participating teams with an optimal atmosphere that guarantees them the best levels of performance, but it also leads to the elimination of the carbon footprint resulting from domestic flights that What fans, players, officials and the accompanying management teams had to do at previous editions of the World Cup finals.

In addition, the designs of the eight stadiums for the tournament have taken into account compliance with carbon emissions reduction standards with the aim of reducing energy and water consumption, and reusing and recycling water and materials as much as possible.

Among the eight stadiums, we find the exceptional and advanced Stadium 974 as the first fully dismantable stadium in the history of the World Cup tournaments, which made it fly far in the space of sustainability on many levels, due to its construction from shipping containers and disassembled materials that include walls, ceiling and seats.

Parts of the stadium, which has a capacity of 40,000 spectators, will be dismantled and used for other purposes after the end of the tournament, including the construction of sports facilities inside and outside Qatar.

Highly efficient and environmentally friendly cooling systems have been used in all stadiums, and innovative lighting technologies that meet the requirements of sustainability and environmental preservation, as the energy used is generated from the main grid that receives energy coming from the Kharsaa solar project.

The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, in cooperation with the Ministry of Municipality and Environment, represented by the Environmental Monitoring and Laboratory Department, installed stations to measure air quality, gaseous emissions and dust in the World Cup stadiums.

These stations will contribute to strengthening the monitoring and control of ambient air quality, and ensuring the best international standards for air quality in the country, especially the venues for sports activities and various international events and tournaments, especially during the Qatar World Cup 2022.

With regard to the recycling process in the World Cup stadiums, the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 has adopted many measures and procedures that organized the waste and waste sorting mechanism during the construction phase of the World Cup stadiums, with the aim of reducing the carbon footprint.

As part of the tournament's sustainable environmental legacy and commitment to implementing carbon emission standards, tree planting is an important aspect of the World Cup stadium design and construction.

With the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy keen to preserve the local trees and plants surrounding the stadiums and in the surrounding gardens, the "greening" campaign that was launched at the state level is a valuable opportunity to reduce carbon emissions, which contributes to building a sustainable environmental legacy that is of great benefit to society.