A question, Green Football Weekend, AFCON and much more
Round-up #24
Welcome!
There’s been a big bag of things happening since the last round-up. Before we jump into all that, let’s start with a question for you the reader to answer. It’s the second question I’ve asked here. The aim is to have a summary of responses in the next newsletter. Thanks for the great responses last time, and fingers crossed for more this time.
Fran
Reader Question: What would a green future for football look like 10 years from now?
Click this link to provide your views. Responses are anonymous, and all types of responses are welcome - short or long, wide-ranging or issue-focussed, strategic or practical - by Friday 2nd February. You can also use the link to suggest future questions. Alternatively, email or comment below. A summary of responses to the last question are here.
Green Football Weekend campaign launches
The campaign aims to tackle climate change by bringing together fans, clubs, leagues and players to take action from now up to the big weekend of 3rd to 5th February. The website sets out how you take action and includes a veggie cookbook with recipes from over 40 clubs. Is yours there? This video about the launch event has had over 4m views.
Clubs and partners have been showing their support and encouraging fans to get involved. Partner action includes The Ministry of Eco Education hosting an online workshop from Forest Green Rovers for school students on 29th January. And the Met Office, has a handy guide on Is The Game We Love At Risk?
I’ll be keeping an eye out for wider issues raised as a result of the campaign. For instance, among responses on social media, one theme that seems to be emerging is the scheduling of games for TV, and how this can affect sustainable travel choices.
AFCON
A music video to start with …
Coverage from around the world has focussed on calls to remove TotalEnergies as a sponsor and includes: The Daily Maverick, Le Monde, Forbes, The Mirror, Fossil Free Football, and Greenpeace.
Two other stories. Firstly, from the World Food Programme: Afcon: DRC kicks off football dreams as conflict and climate change drive hunger. Secondly, in The Athletic: Nigeria’s Troost-Ekong on making history at AFCON with first sustainable boot.
Clubs
Arsenal will run a club action tournament for their supporters with Planet League.
Barcelona is recycling concrete and steel from the demolition of Camp Nou for reuse in the construction of its new stadium.
Bohemians climate justice officer talks to the Irish Times in a challenging read about making climate action realistic for people without means.
Fulham Supporters' Trust have written about their discussions on the implications of climate change for Fulham in the future.
Grassroots club, Leicester Nirvana FC has visited Germany to connect with FC Internationale Berlin and Eintracht Peitz and discuss net zero, racism and social responsibility.
Norwich City have held an environmental training session with Football For Future.
Oxford United. Although not announced by the club itself, the club are now listed on the UN website as having signed up to the Sport for Climate Action Framework (and Grimsby Town are no longer on the list).
Union Saint-Gilloise has been recognised as a ‘B Corp.’ through meeting a series of social and environmental standards. Check out the video in the story too.
Stade Brestois 29 donated profits from their match-worn shirts to Football Ecologie France.
Watford announced they have signed up to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework. The club also announced a new partnership with a fan platform for logging travel to and from matches.
West Brom’s sustainability working group, ‘Pastures Green’ have been working with Final Third.
Wycombe Wanderers have launched a new sustainability strategy.
In other news …
Fulham Footballer, Kenny Tete, on his way home from Chelsea vs Fulham on a lime bike.
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Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserFossil Free Football are recruiting a campaigner. Share widely!
Action FC on why the women’s game is an important voice in the fight against climate change.
Grassroots Sport event at Loughborough University on 29th January.
The world’s biggest electric vehicle manufacturer, BYD, has become an Official Partner of EURO 2024.
England v New Zealand: Go Green cricket match - game measures cut CO2 emissions by a third. There are important lessons here for football on how it can test and measure new approaches to reducing emissions.
A new report recommends the Mayor of London develop a regional plan in response to climate risks. Part of that should “support London’s sporting and cultural institutions to manage higher temperatures”.
The Danish FA has sets up a Circular City Committee with stakeholders.
Fossil Free Football on KNVB, don't leave the lion in the oil.
The Globe Soccer Awards announced that the awards would be “the World's First Carbon Neutral Soccer Awards” by “offsetting unavoidable emissions”. Separately, the EU announced last week it would ban ‘misleading’ environmental claims that rely on offsetting.
Vitas Carosella in Forbes on
The European Club Association and its focus on sustainability
Kylian Mbappé, and player workload: “could a reduction in games simultaneously help organizers mitigate their environmental impact, limit travel, and allow players more recovery time?”
When Saturday Comes article: Game off: The impact of climate change bites in another winter of postponements. I’ve not read this one yet, but hope to.
Also not read, the Research Handbook on Major Sporting Events has some chapters on sustainability that look very interesting.
Women’s World Cup 2023: Carbon emissions
The New Zealand Government has released an impact evaluation report of the World Cup. Section 5.4 looks at the ‘Impact on New Zealand’s environment’. Some observations:
It notes that “FIFA had not yet released its carbon audit”. It’s not clear if and when this is due.
As with EURO2024, there is a monetary figure put on the carbon produced by the tournament (section 5.4). This may be a sign that this approach is gaining ground. If so, it would be good to see an assessment of what the best approach/es might be going forward. Any expert views here would be particularly welcome.
It identifies 69,879 tonnes of CO2e attributable to the World Cup, and total emissions produced by attendees as 79,411 tCO2e. This will not be the full emissions for the tournament as it only covers New Zealand, which hosted 29 (or 45%) of the 64 games, and not Australia.
Official figures for the Men’s World Cup 2022, totalled over 3.6m tCO2e, and independent experts put them much higher. Even though this report only covers matches in New Zealand it seems highly likely the overall emissions will be significantly lower than the Men’s World Cup. If so, it begs the important question, why?
Factoring in stadium construction and differences in ticket sales may account for some of this. But it still seem likely to leave the emissions from the Men’s World Cup much higher. Is it to do with the balance between local and international attendees? Is it a different methodology? Is it a mix of these? Or something else? I’d be grateful for all insights!
Club Commitments
I’ve updated the single handy table of environmental commitments by clubs in the top 4 tiers of English football. The changes are largely due to the inclusion of statements in club accounts, and a couple I missed the first time around.
It shows 13 of the 92 clubs have made a public net-zero commitment and 49 of the 92 clubs have published an environmental statement, policy, or strategy.
More on what the table does and does not tell us is here. If you have any suggestions for further columns to add to this open-source table then please say.
Coming up
4th February. FIFA will announce the World Cup 2026 match schedule. The tournament was already expected to produce more emissions than any previous World Cup, even before it was expanded to 104 matches. Will we also see the sustainability strategy that was due to be published last year?
8th February. The annual UEFA Congress will include a discussion on a new 'UEFA Strategy 2024-2030'. A review of its sustainability strategy is envisaged for 2025. At a time where the EU is stepping up its ambition on climate goals, will we see UEFA stepping up its ambition, focus and resources?
The Football Governance Bill, also incoming? After a hearing in Parliament with the Heads of the Premier League and the EFL, the MP chairing the meeting said the Football Governance Bill and independent regulator need to be introduced 'as soon as possible.'
Long Read: Newcastle United
As clubs release their annual accounts I’m taking a look at the environmental content in each of them. Newcastle United’s 2022/23 annual accounts have just been published and are here. They include a section on Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting.
In the report, annual carbon emissions are stated as 3,445 tCO2e, a small decrease of 1.1% from the previous year. It’s not possible to establish any longer-term trend as the only other period that we have figures for were Covid affected.
It’s also important to note the emissions reported here are only what is legally required. In practice, the overall carbon footprint of the club will be a lot larger.
Recognising this, and in a positive move, the club say that “full scope 3 emission calculation is not necessary for SECR but is currently being calculated and will be available for future reports”.
Doing so will see Newcastle United join a small but growing number of Premier League clubs that have voluntarily committed to full reporting - albeit each in their own way, and not consistently and comparably across clubs.
This sits alongside a further commitment with the club signing up to the UN Sports for Climate Change Action Framework. Signatories commit to goals of halving emissions by 2030 and aiming to achieve net zero by 2040.
The club intends “to develop a clear Net Zero emissions roadmap within an achievable timescale”. Again this is a positive development though what that means for timescales in practice is not exactly clear.
In making the UN commitment, they join five other Premier League clubs that have signed up to it, making the argument stronger for others to follow suit too. It’s a particularly interesting commitment by the club as the chairman of the investment fund that majority owns the club, is also the Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia - a country whose climate action has been assessed as “critically insufficient”.
The club’s scope 1 and 2 emission were in the Premier League's top 6 highest reported last year. They are likely to be in a similar position this year due to clubs with larger grounds on the whole reporting more scope 1 and 2 emissions (though the relationship is not straightforward). In line with this, the report notes that “the highest consuming area is St James’ Park, with this totalling 82.96% of the overall tCO2e emissions”.
The report notes some energy efficiency measures that have taken place and says that “These measures will have the desired impact of reducing Scope 2 emissions”. On the other hand, energy use has increased by 2.5% this year despite these. The reasons are not clear.
Finally, the report notes the club’s support for the ‘Magpie Mover’ ticket which provides season ticket holders with heavily subsidised match day travel on local public transport.
Alongside Brighton, they are the only Premier League clubs that I am aware of that support subsidised public transport for game days. Sustainable fan travel to games is known to be a key issue in addressing emissions in football. It would be great to see a deeper dive into how the offers from these two clubs work, what they achieve, and what other clubs could learn from them.
With reported emissions having only reduced 1.1% in the last year, it appears that only small inroads are being made in reducing emissions in the last reporting year. However, the report shows important commitments since last year in the club’s longer-term focus on net zero, that many other clubs are yet to make. Policies and action in the next reporting period to deliver on these commitments will be key.
That was a long one - though perhaps that’s unsurprising with Green Football Weekend and also the annual accounts period upon us. The newsletter will be back in a fortnight unless there are any major developments in the meantime. As ever, all comments, corrections, insights and suggestions are welcome as ever!
Fran James (he/him)
Football and Climate Change Newsletter
footballandclimatechange@gmail.com
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