Have you ever wondered what your favourite Premier League football club is up to off the pitch in regard to the environment? A new report launched Thursday outlines what all twenty clubs are doing on environmental sustainability, from fan travel, food, player engagement, biodiversity, as well as what you don’t see behind the scenes.
Players are becoming more visible and vocal on environmental sustainability efforts for their club. Newcastle F.C.’s Sean Longstaff has painted bird boxes as part of nature and biodiversity education, former Manchester City F.C.’s Micah Richards and Shaun Wright-Phillips take us on an electric vehicle drive to Wembley Stadium, at Liverpool F.C., Andy Robertson leads Mohamed Salah, Darwin Nunez and more in a team meeting with a difference and Arsenal F.C.’s academy environment champion Alexei Rojas recently spoke out about climate change at The Eden Project.
Having a pie or a burger at the game is long held tradition in English football. If you want to uphold the tradition, but explore alternatives to meat, all 2o clubs serve plant-based food on their concourses. From the crispy oyster mushroom burger at Tottenham Hotspur F.C., vegan Tuscan bean pie at Crystal Place F.C. and a bhaji burger at Chelsea F.C. Five clubs including Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. and Aston Villa F.C. also have food emissions labelling on concourses, so whatever you are eating you can see what the impact on the planet is.
What’s happening behind the scenes? Stadiums and training facilities need large amounts of energy to power them, efficiency is critical for clubs from an environmental and financial perspective. Thirteen clubs have electricity provided from 100% renewable sources across their stadiums, training grounds and academies, with six of them having onsite clean energy creation. Nottingham Forest F.C. has installed a solar array on the Fan Zone social space.
Water is a finite resource that is essential to all life, it is a crucial element of running a football club too, from bathroom and kitchen facilities at stadiums to irrigating pitches. Nine Premier League clubs have rainwater or groundwater reuse efforts. Behaviour change plays an important role in water saving too, Liverpool F.C recently issued a letter to its Academy players and families to detail ways that water usage in their homes can be reduced.
Team and fan travel is frequently highlighted as a visible or major part of a football club’s carbon footprint. It’s not an easy problem to solve, but action is being taken. Brighton and Hove Albion F.C. are thinking of the environment and fan’s wallets by subsidising free travel for home and away fans on buses and trains within their free travel zone. Eight clubs have undertaken fan travel surveys to understand how their fans get to games and published those results on their websites. Seven clubs have a sustainable transport policy in place that includes fans, staff and team travel.
Fans sit at the heart of many of these club initiatives. In 2021, Brentford F.C. rolled over their home kit for two seasons. The affordability aspect for fans, in the current cost of living crisis, alongside environmental benefits has led them to doing it again for the 23/25 home kit. James Beale, Sustainability Manager at the club commented, “Our latest fan survey tells us that sustainability is important to our supporters, and we’re pleased to see the report shows that we’re making progress in our work with fans, partners and our local community.”
Progress is being made. Earlier this year, the Premier League announced its Environmental Sustainability Commitment, which includes club’s developing a robust environmental sustainability policy by the end of the 2024/25 season. The report shows that all twenty current clubs – which, to note, will have changed by next season due to promotion and relegation – have some kind of sustainability policy, commitment, strategy or statement in place.
Under this commitment, clubs must also develop a greenhouse gas emissions dataset, including scope 1, 2 and 3, by the end of the 2025/26 season. The report shows that six clubs have this dataset and currently publish their GHG emissions, one has the dataset but it is not currently public and five more clubs are in the process of calculating or reviewing their GHG emissions.
Disclosure: The report referenced in this article was created by Sport Positive, a company founded and owned by the author of this article, Claire Poole. The report is free to access, there are no sponsors or partners involved, and there is no direct commercial benefit to those involved with the creation or dissemination of the report.
