Earth FC, spheres, dependencies and more

Round-up #36

Aug 27, 2024

Hello again,

At the end of this week we have the draws for the new formats of the 3 major men’s UEFA club tournaments. This will see over 170 club games added to the football calendar this season, with the new format FIFA Club World Cup adding even more. It’s a good point at which to return to the BBC story from October of last year on What could more European football mean for the planet?

Sections in this newsletter: Earth FC, Club actions round-up, learning from other events, other news and comment, EURO 2024, the Premier League, FC Bayern Munich Sustainability Report, and Understanding Net Zero in 3 Graphics.

Fran

Earth FC

Earth FC is a new campaign aiming to mobilise football fans in Brazil and around the world in the run up to the November 2025 international climate talks (“COP 30”) which will take place there.

It involves a coalition of clubs, community groups, civil society, and youth organisations, and is convened by Onda Solidaria and Count Us In. It looks like an interesting one to look out for more on going forward.

Club actions round-up

FC Bayern have published their sustainability report for the 2022/23 season. It includes a section on ‘Climate & Environment’. I’ve looked at it in more detail below.
Borussia Dortmund have partnered with an energy trading company to install the largest solar energy system on a stadium roof in Germany.
Cliftonville FC is offering a new home to endangered house martins.
Dundee FC’s chief is 'emotional' over their new stadium which will include 100% recyclable seating, a "green roof" to promote biodiversity, and more sustainbility features.
Lewes FC have published new data on the progress of their ‘bring your own cup’ discount scheme.
Manchester City FC won the first Black Boot for their 31 minute flight back from London after their game against Chelsea.
Nottingham Forest FC’s sustainability partner has provided insights into their new sustainable fan zone outside the ground. Separately, the club have won the Black Boot for Gameweek 2 for their 28 minute flight from Southampton to the East Midlands.
Real Madrid CF may give players a holiday in season to help cope with the fixture congestion and extensive travelling being asked of players.
Watford FC have extended their partnership with a sustainability platform that logs fans travel and encourages more sustainable actions.

Learning from other events

Massive Attack’s gig in Bristol, for 34,000 people aimed to be the lowest-carbon concert of its scale ever held.
The Berkeley Carbon Trading Project looks at the Democratic National Congress and says it “offers an excellent example of how to reduce the climate impact from a major event”.

Other news and comment

A rapid electric charging company has partnered with Fair Game to bring EV charging to 33 English lower league and non-league football clubs.
Commercial climate solidarity in football by Matthew Campelli in The Sustainability Report looks at the important role football can have in spotlighting climate solutions.
Football should take climate policy more seriously – it would benefit from that too says Frank Huisingh of Fossil Free Football in Het Parool, setting out a vision of how football could organise differently in future.
In this short video, Alexei Rojas of Arsenal FC and Elliot Arthur-Worsop of Football for Future share perspectives on football and climate change. Elsewhere, Elliot is one of four social innovators sharing perspectives on advancing climate solutions in sport.
Environmental Sustainability in the Future of English Football Governance by T. Heidelstam for Pledgeball. This looks at how English football could learn from German football by including mandatory sustainability criteria in its licensing regulations.
Birmingham County FA is running a Green Innovation Fund where grassroots clubs can apply for up to £750 to support sustainability projects.
FORAM initiatives, based in Benin, are taking part in the "Hidden Voices of Climate Change", an initiative that has been developed by De Montfort University Leicester alongside amateur football clubs, Leicester Nirvana and SG Eintracht Peitz.
The Last Corner Toolkit is a new resource developed by Fabrizio Lauria, looking at how club’s can influence sustainable behaviour.
The “Kick-off for the climate” project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Environment, is hosted a closing event on 17th September. The project aims to help young football fans evaluate the sustainability of venues.
Football Ecologie France has been selected for a scheme whereby all donations to them are doubled by a partner. Find out more about their work and how you can support them here.

EURO 2024

UEFA has published a tournament summary document ahead of further detailed reports expected in the Autumn. It has a section on the environment with some initial headline statistics. Some of these are already familiar, and some new - including on its Climate Fund that it says will lead to an estimated 60,000 tCO2 emissions reductions.

Edie takes a useful look at what UEFA’s summary says in How sustainable were the Euros 2024? It includes noting that: “An external audit will assess the tournament’s sustainability performance, and a comprehensive ESG report is scheduled for release in October 2024. The German Government has also commissioned an impact study to evaluate the tournament’s environmental and social effects.”

Premier League

The Premier League CEO, Richard Masters, told BBC News that they hope to announce a Premier League Sustainability Strategy in the course of this season. The league originally said in a statement in 2021 that it would publish a strategy in 2022. The CEO also told the BBC that “we're obviously committed to with a number of other sports for the UN Climate Action commitment of being net zero by 2040, all of our clubs are signed up to that” Currently eight clubs have publicly said they are signed up to the UN initiative. Elsewhere:

In The Athletic: Premier League plane watch: How often did your team fly to games on last season’s run-in? A well-researched piece takes a snapshot look at the last 10 rounds of fixtures in the 2023-24 season and finds that teams made at least 58 trips to or from games using charter flights. The article looks at why clubs fly so frequently, different approaches taken by clubs, and the views of environmental groups on what needs to change.
Premier League Returns Covered in Polluting Sponsors, is a new briefing by Fossil Free Football, the Game Changer Sponsorship Pledge, and Badvertising. It includes a club-by-club look at sponsorship deals.

FC Bayern Munich Sustainability Report

FC Bayern have just published their sustainability report for the 2022/23 season which includes a section titled ‘Climate & Environment’. Here’s some points I took from it, it would be good to hear others.

The report talks about both their carbon footprint (from emissions) and their handprint (from awareness-raising efforts, though more detail on these could have been given here). The club’s objective is “to achieve a calculated balance of net zero emissions by 2040 at the latest”. As with other clubs, this target has not been independently verified. No interim targets are stated, and the club is not among the small but growing number of clubs signed-up to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework.

The report states that “we are not in a position to reduce all emissions to such an extent that we will achieve our net zero target by 2040 through savings alone. We must therefore offset the unavoidable emissions”. It’s not clear at this stage what level of emissions the club believes will be unavoidable. We should hope to see more detail here in the future to establish what emissions cuts are expected and what actions are needed to support them.

The report also says “The primary concerns for us are to have our compensation measures scientifically tested and to ensure that we only invest in reliable and credible projects. Our vision involves developing our own scientifically supported environmental protection projects.” It will be important for wider discussions and emerging best practice on carbon credits to shape the club’s approach going forward.

The CO2e figures here are for 2021/22. It’s not clear why 2022/23 figures are not yet available and a number of other clubs have reported their 2022/2023 figures. The total carbon footprint is stated as 75,966.26 tCO2e, with 76.35% coming from “Use of the goods sold (fan mobility)”. This is a significantly higher percentage of total emissions attributed to fan travel than those reported by the few other clubs who have also published emissions reports. Given the large variations between clubs they may all be using very different methods to calculate them, and/or there may be other reasons (Bayern acknowledge fans travelling from across the world to watch them as a factor). A more detailed breakdown on transport emissions would have been interesting to see. The club is conducting a mobility analysis and further measures to encourage sustainable travel are expected on the basis of that, so hopefully there will be more insights to come.

The club expect the reported emissions to increase sharply in the following year as this 2021/22 period partly covers the COVID pandemic, and additional scope 3 categories will be included in future. Using location-based rather market-based scope 2 emissions reporting would also add to this too.

On policy advocacy it is mentioned in relation to fan transport that there is a need to “look for solutions with external stakeholders such as politicians or the League.” No mention is made of having used, or plans to use the UEFA Carbon Calculator methodology to make this carbon footprint assessment. No reporting is set out on climate risks and opportunities, governance, or transition planning.

This is the first year FC Bayern have reported these figures, and with European CSRD requirements coming in to place, it seems clear the reporting approach will evolve, and hopefully add further detail and focus in the future.

Understanding Net Zero in 3 Graphics

As the FC Bayern reports shows, there is an increasing number of clubs and governing bodies making net zero commitments, and putting out reports on what they are doing. New EU reporting rules for business will mean many more of the biggest clubs in Europe will also be reporting on their actions and progress soon too.

In this context its important for those of us on the outside looking in to make sure we are drawing on the best practice and latest thinking. This can help us ensure we are clearly understanding the progress those in the football community is making, and support efforts for where further action is needed.

But understanding the progress that football is making towards net zero is a bit more difficult than it first seems. Scratch below the surface and you will see their is lots of guidance and standards, and important debates and developments about what matters. Here are three graphics from three recent reports that I’ve found have helped me with better understanding what matters on net zero. These are not comprehensive by any means, but hopefully a good starter for ten.

1. Guidelines

There is a lot of different net-zero guidance and standards out there from different organisations. How do we know what needs to be included in setting and delivering a net-zero target? This report looks at all these guidelines and standards and highlights a growing convergence of the key issues that a net-zero commitment should address. It also identifies where there are still important gaps to ensure emissions reduction targets and plans are urgent, rigorous and effective.

When football clubs and governing bodies announce net-zero commitments, or report on their progress, this helps us in looking beyond the headline at what is and is not being included.

2. Dependencies

Understanding and setting out the dependencies in the football world feels like an under-explored yet hugely important area given the range of actors involved. A shared understanding here would help us to clarify the roles and actions that governing bodies, clubs, fans, and others in the football community and beyond, play.

This new report says that existing guidance has little detail on what constitutes a dependency for a company and how to capture comprehensively the extent to which a company’s plan relies on external factors. The graphic below from the report provides a typology of dependencies. The report goes on to show how to assess the risks these dependencies bring, and recognises that there may be big differences in different sectors. For instance, in football, the regulatory framework may include rules set by FIFA, a regional body (such as UEFA), and national governing bodies (such as the FA), as well as well as more general regulations and regulatory bodies.

3. Scopes and Spheres

“Today’s global net-zero governance landscape fails to recognize some of the most important strategic actions companies can take to mitigate climate change” says this new report.

It’s not breaking news that football has a unique ability to use its influence to encourage positive behaviours and raise awareness (FC' Bayern’s report is among those that mention this). But how best to recognise this influencing role?

This report proposes a structured approach to understanding the wider systemic influence companies can have. Alongside the three scopes of emissions that organisations need to address, it identifies three “spheres of influence” that organisations have, as set out in the graphic below.

For my money, one of the areas this ‘spheres of influence’ approach currently underplays is the role organisations can play in promoting and communicating change to people - a particular biggie when it comes to football. The role of advertising is mentioned in the report, but a more expansive consideration of the role of communication in influencing behaviour is needed.

That said, these ‘spheres of influence’ provide a new and different lens through which to understand the influencing role clubs and bodies can have. it also puts structure behind that, and has the potential to also take more account of awareness-raising efforts with fans and the public. It will be interesting to see if/how experts and practitioners respond to, and develop, it.

That’s all! The last section in this newsletter was a bit of a digression from the usual focus of this newsletter into the tools of the trade. Was it useful? Or did it not add much? All views welcome!

And as ever corrections, comments, suggestions for content, and proposals to write guest posts are welcome at any time.

See you again soon.

Fran James (he/him)
Football and Climate Change Newsletter
footballandclimatechange@gmail.com
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