Club commitments, circularity, Norwich City and more
Round-up #19
Welcome, one and all!
A big hello to the influx of new subscribers who have recently joined. I hope you and regular readers find some nuggets here and make use of them. One ask - please like, say, and share the newsletter if you find it useful. Jumping straight in …
“Inch by inch progress will not do. It is time for a climate ambition supernova in every country, city, and sector.” The United Nations Secretary-General speaking last week
Club environmental commitments
Supporters of clubs in the top four English leagues can now find out what their club has said they are doing through this single handy table.
The Football Supporters’ Association has said: “We’d like to see clubs publish a sustainability policy, nominate a director to lead that, publish CO2 emissions, commit to external benchmarking and publish Net Zero Carbon targets.” The table shows:
12 of the 92 clubs have made a public net-zero commitment - 6 in the Premier League, 4 in the Championship, and 2 in League Two. Of the 12 who have made net zero commitments, 10 are signatories to the UN Race to Zero initiative.
39 of the 92 clubs have published an environmental statement, policy, or strategy. 16 are in the Premier League, 9 in the Championship, 7 in League One and 7 in League Two. The lack of environmental statements in lower leagues may suggest the need for more support for clubs to deliver and act on them.
5 of the 92 clubs have published an assessment of their full carbon footprint, including scope 3 emissions. Four in the Premier League and Forest Green Rovers.
This snapshot fits with broader concerns that climate action remains inadequate and further efforts are needed. Clearly football needs to accelerate action too. All views are welcome in the comments or by email on what more and better action should look like!
Also note:
The table does not assess the credibility of the net zero commitments or statements that clubs have made, nor the progress on reducing emissions so far. See Sport Positive Leagues for an in-depth look at the efforts of clubs.
Bigger clubs - due to their turnover and other factors - are required to publish some environmental reporting in their annual accounts. As and when they do, the newsletter will aim to take a look at them. First out of the blocks is Norwich City. See below.
This is version 1. Please get in touch if I’ve missed stuff, made a mistake, or if you have any updates.
“There is a need to move urgently on the climate crisis and few cultural entities have the reach of football, into every community of every corner of the planet”
Sean McCabe of Bohemian FC in this Independent story where journalist Daniel Storey visits the humanitarian football club championing universal inclusion.
Prince of Wales
Prince William has been talking about his passions for football and addressing climate change. This comes shortly after he combined the two with an Earthshot Prize Winner working with Aston Villa. As President of the Earthshot Prize and the FA, here’s hoping he combines these interests further!
FIFA
The Times revealed that Saudi state oil company, Aramco, is set to become Fifa’s biggest-paying sponsor. “No surprise, but unacceptable” noted Fossil Free Football. Elsewhere, 82% of attendees at the Sport Positive Summit said ‘yes’ to the question “Should sport now entirely be disengaging from sponsorship money that comes from fossil fuel/heavy carbon emitter”. Full report here.
The Times report came on the same day that Aramco was listed first among the highest emitting fossil fuel companies in the world in a new report by the global climate science and policy institute, Climate Analytics.
Extreme Weather
The "largest rainfall event ever" in the Dominican Republic’s history left at least 21 people dead. The CONCACAF Nations League match between Bahamas and Guyana due to be played there was postponed.
Elsewhere in the Caribbean, Jamaica vs Canada had to be rescheduled by a day, as this incredible video of the pitch conditions show.
In Europe, heavy rain led to a very late change of venue for the international friendly between Belgium and Serbia, with fans no longer being allowed to attend.
In other news …
Footballer Morten Thorsby spoke to Sustainability Managers of UEFA Member Nations. He highlighted the need for football's governing bodies to put the planetary crises at the top of their agenda.
“The Serie A Sustainability Index” full report has just been published here. It came out as this newsletter was being finalised and is in Italian, so I’ve not had a look yet!
Podcast: The team behind the new Football and Climate Justice Report talk to The Sustainability Report about the work.
New York City Football Club, part of City Football Group, outlined plans to build the first-ever fully electric soccer stadium in the MLS. It includes various sustainability features. The embodied emissions it will produce are unclear.
Does a pro-environmental attitude predict pro-environmental behavior? This study compared football fans and university students.
The latest newsletter from The UK Sports Grounds Safety Authority notes a call for evidence to inform a zero-emission heavy goods vehicle and coach infrastructure strategy and officials interest to hear from sports grounds.
West Bromwich Albion set out progress on their waste management targets
Recycling: Sustainable fashion line made from Inter Miami Soccer Jerseys. The Euro 2024 football will be made from recycled materials
Hyundai, FIFA’s sustainable mobility partner, provided 148 vehicles for the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Indonesia. 3 of the 5 car makes involved are regular petrol or diesel engine cars.
Two clubs made round trips of 33,000 km each for one-off games in the Coupe de France competition.
UEFA Circular Economy Guidelines
An updated version of the guidelines has been published. It’s gone from 93 to 191 pages. With no summary of the updates, it’s hard to understand what is new here but it looks like a lot has been reused and recycled if not reduced!
That said there is clearly a huge amount of useful case studies, statistics and ideas for clubs to learn from and make use of. It covers four key areas - food and beverage, apparel and equipment, event materials, and energy and water.
Two aspects might be made clearer in future updates. Firstly, what size of emissions cuts might be achieved by taking a circular approach? And, secondly, how will UEFA ensure enough progress is made by clubs? None of this is compulsory for clubs as far as I could tell, will a voluntary approach achieve the change needed?
Elsewhere, The Football Association of Wales has held the first meeting of its new Circular City Committee with public bodies and others from the world of football. It’s one of four new committees that will also be in Ireland, Denmark and Porto as part of an interesting EU-funded ACCESS Project targeting sports organisations.
Energy and Carbon Reporting
Below is the first in a series of analyses of clubs’ sustainability reporting for the 2022/23 period that will appear as and when clubs publish their annual reports. You can find assessments of many Premier League clubs for last year in previous posts and/or on the newsletter's social media feed.
I’m still learning what to cover in these, the intricacies of the issues, and how best to go about this. So all feedback, corrections and suggestions are hugely welcome.
Norwich City Football Club
Norwich City’s 2022/23 annual accounts are here and include a section on sustainability as part of SECR reporting requirements.
Annual carbon emissions are reported as 762.73 tCO2e, though this figure will be a lot smaller than the overall carbon footprint of the club as it does not include scope 3 emissions reporting.
The accounts state that scope 2 emissions (from electricity) are zero. This is highly likely due only to the use of a market-based reporting approach here. It does not provide enough details on their purchase of renewable energy to assess if there is any impact from it on reducing emissions. This also means it is not possible to make like-for-like comparisons with the club’s emissions in previous years.
In a positive step that should address these reporting issues - and help lead to stronger commitments - the club say they will “Partner with the UEA to discuss ways in which we can work together and measure our carbon footprint.” Hopefully, this will also take into account guidance published here on How football clubs should report their carbon footprint.
Energy consumption appears to have sky-rocketed year-on-year by nearly 21% (from 5,703 MWh in 21/22 to 6,884 MWh in 22/23). The reasons for this are unclear. It comes despite two of the four listed strategy objectives being focussed on energy efficiency, and also several energy-efficiency initiatives being set out. It is also against the background of the UK Government's ambition set in 2022 to reduce energy demand by 15% by 2030.
Separately, note, the club does not have a net-zero commitment. Currently, only four clubs in the Championship do. However, it is one of nine clubs in the league that has published a sustainability statement and is also an EFL Green Club member.
In summary, there is insufficient data to assess whether the club is reducing emissions, and, if so, whether these are in line with UK targets towards net-zero. Further work by the club on emissions measurement is underway. The sharp rise in energy consumption in the previous year suggests the club may be heading in the wrong direction. However, this is only one year’s worth of data, not the full scope of the club’s emissions, and the context for that increase is unclear.
Climate talks
With the global ‘COP28’ climate talks in UAE about to start a number of key reports have been published to inform it. These are super-helpful to get a sense of the big-picture and include:
The State of Climate Action 2023 by several key organisations
The 2023 Production Gap Report by the UN Environment Programme
“Net Zero Greenwash”: The Gap Between Corporate Commitments and their Policy Engagement by InfluenceMap
The 2023 Nationally Determined Contributions Synthesis Report by UN Climate Change
Thanks for reading. By the time the next round-up goes out the ‘COP28’ climate talks will be in full swing. Keep an eye out for the developments there, and here’s hoping for important progress.
Fran James (he/him)
Football and Climate Change Newsletter
footballandclimatechange@gmail.com
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