Green shoots of hope delivered by innovative amateur clubs
Grassroots clubs are engaging and inspiring young people on sustainability
Introduction
By Fran James, Football and Climate Change Newsletter
The most popular post of 2023 in this newsletter was by Ivan Liburd of Leicester Nirvana FC on Bridging the gap between inequalities and sustainability in grassroots football. The club have been working with De Montfort University and this guest post picks up on the university’s latest work with Leicester Nirvana and other amateur clubs.
For more on the work of Leicester Nirvana check out their new net zero webpage and an excellent new blog from Ivan on Breaking Barriers: A Call for Diversity in Sustainability Conversations. And keep an eye out for more reports here in the future.
Green shoots of hope delivered by innovative amateur clubs as the professional game starts to clean up its act
By Dr Mark Charlton De Montfort University Net Zero Football Research Project
It has been a winter of reckoning for football and climate change. Amateur clubs have had their pitches submerged, clubhouses ruined and fixtures backlogged as storms battered the United Kingdom in early 2024. At the same time, as fans and players stood on the sidelines hoping for better weather, the brilliant Green Football Weekend took place, a new Premier League Environmental Sustainability Commitment was announced and an overwhelming sense that sport is finally starting to clean up its act began to grow.
These green shoots of hope will only take root if players, managers, coaches, owners, sponsors and those who run the game start to give time and energy to reduce carbon emissions. Since 2022, a research project at De Montfort University (DMU), in Leicester has been working with a network of clubs precisely doing that. Back then, an amateur club, Leicester Nirvana, who told of their journey so far in the Football and Climate Newsletter in January 2023, have worked closely with a multi-disciplinary DMU research team to help them with their ambition of becoming the UK’s first Net Zero amateur football club. It has been a powerful learning curve for all parties that has already yielded some positive impacts.
In November, researchers delivered the results of carbon emissions testing of scopes 1,2 and 3 emissions at Leicester Nirvana, believed to be the first comprehensive test of its kind for an amateur football club. Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions that the clubs owns or controls, like their facilities and vehicles. Scopes 2 and 3 are a consequence of the club’s activities, which are out of the club’s direct control from activities like training, matchdays and clubhouse operations which are not owned, or controlled, by the club.
The data gathered has provided players and coaches with invaluable insight into how they can achieve their Net Zero goal and has also attracted the attention of local community sports networks who are also ready to make the change.
Without bamboozling readers with carbon data reading, the findings basically showed that gas and electricity use were the drivers of Scope 1 and 2 emissions, which made up 21% of the club’s carbon footprint, but by far the biggest pollutants were in Scope 3 – the indirect emissions of the club – including the manufacture of the club’s kits and the dominant polluting factor at the club – player and fan travel by car.
As a club based in one of the poorest postcodes in the country, resourcing a fleet of electric minibuses to move 1,000 young boys and girls around to training and matches, seems somewhat unlikely and this is a problem that exposes an issue felt widely across the game at all levels.
Undeterred, Leicester Nirvana’s leadership took a trip to Germany to share their findings and learn from two other clubs in DMU’s football research project making progress towards Net Zero – Eintracht Peitz and International Berlin.
Training and matchday travel emissions were something of a headache shared amongst the clubs. Eintracht Peitz has been able to maximise use of the club’s minibus to bring car travel down at its facility near Cottbus, but Peitz have far fewer players on the roster than Nirvana.
Car-sharing was being encouraged across all three clubs, but this is a somewhat challenging and imperfect initiative for the mass movement of hundreds of kids on matchdays. Better results were identified in the way kits might be bought in future – a high emitter of carbon in Scope 3, stemming from textile manufacture processes and import. As recently mentioned in The Conversation, at International Berlin, kit companies must meet certain criteria if they want to tender to supply their squads, and this could be hugely influential, if all clubs followed suit.
As these clubs implement their sustainability strategies, which includes everything from putting recycled loo paper in the clubhouse toilets and switching to LED lights, not only are they doing everything they can for the environment, but, crucially, they are showing their young players there is another way, while educating them on climate change.
It could be argued that these teams are amongst the early pioneers of sustainable football, amongst the first to take the lead in a sport which appears to be finally acknowledging its influential role in changing public opinion and influencing behaviour.
Amidst the wet-weather match cancellations and the high winds, the second Green Football Weekend appeared to get some great traction amongst fans and players this year. As the largest football campaign focused on tackling climate change, fans were encouraged to score green goals, which provides a really useful set of climate-friendly ideas and resources. The publicity surrounding this event has had a large reach and appears to have delivered a positive response from the football community, particularly in the professional game.
Finally, clubs in the top-flight, some of which have come under fire for their short-haul flights in private jets, match day plastic use and general apathy to climate-related issues, have agreed to a Premier League Environmental Sustainability Commitment, which introduces a minimum standard of action on environmental issues across the clubs and the league. Amongst the commitment is the need for clubs to develop a robust environmental sustainability policy, by the end of the 2024/25 season, designate staff to lead the club’s environmental sustainability activities, develop an emissions dataset (scope 1, 2 and 3) by the end of the 2025/26 season and develop of a common framework for action. All of these points will probably sound familiar to a small army of amateur clubs who have already put these actions in place.
This was recently featured in the Football and Climate Change Newsletter which covered some valuable points on the lack of detail and specifics of delivery that were missing, highlighting a fair amount of ambiguity. This certainly raised questions about how much attentiveness The Premier League will give to its Environmental Sustainability Commitment. Taking this all in good faith, let’s hope its reach and influence is the gamechanger sport is looking for, while clubs at the grassroots of the game continue to engage, inspire and innovate.
This is at the very heart of where the Net Zero Football Research Project is going. The project is learning that amateur football clubs doing great things for sustainability motivate other clubs to make changes too. The stories of these organisations, their coaches, players and the challenges they need to overcome are resonating throughout the grassroots game.
Most amateur clubs are founded to be a positive force for their communities, to offer sport to young people, keep them out of trouble and set them on the right path in life. The next stage of the project harnesses that by capturing the stories of clubs from across the world, playing and operating in different circumstances, demonstrating contrasting approaches to supporting the environment, and experiencing climate change in ways distinct to their communities.
These stories, told creatively in blogs, photographs and podcasts are being brought together so that learning on how to adapt and mitigate climate change can be shared and promoted, through the global language of football.
Dr. Mark Charlton is a researcher on the DMU Net Zero Research Project. Anyone wishing to find out more or get their club involved can email: mcharlton@dmu.ac.uk