Risks, calculations, powerful voices and more
Round-up #28
Hello again!
This newsletter is a two-parter. First off is the regular smorgasbord of developments from the last couple of weeks. That’s followed by a long-read section on the new UEFA carbon calculator. Dig in and fill yer boots!
Section quick links: Football governance, Sports, climate change and legal liability, Clubs, Pre-season plans, FIFA, In other news, UEFA’s carbon calculator.
Fran
Round-up #28
Football governance
Legislation has been introduced in the UK Parliament to create an independent regulator for football. It will reform the governance of men's elite football in England. It’s been extensively covered in the news.
The newsletter has previously covered the case for the regulator to have responsibilities on environmental issues, for instance, here. On an initial look it’s clear there is no mention of environmental sustainability in the Bill.
Dale Vince of Forest Green Rovers says “bringing environment sustainability into football is a six pointer, and we just lost it”, while Barney Weston of Football for Future looks at mechanisms the regulator will have that could include environmental issues in the future.
I’ll be taking some time to look at what the draft legislation says, doesn’t say, what it closes off and what it leaves open. It may lead to a post. If you have any insights or expertise to share, please email or leave a comment below.
Sports, climate change and legal liability
A first-of-its-kind report has been published by Frontrunners and the Environmental Defenders Office based in Australia. Those covering it here in the UK include The Guardian and the Mail.
The report looks at liability risks to various stakeholders in sport, and the responses available in five key areas: player and spectator welfare, physical infrastructure, contract risk, director’s duties, and reputational risk.
Focussed on Australian sports, it provides lots of insights for sports elsewhere too. It covers legal issues we are all very likely to hear more about in the future. Three stories from the last fortnight bring home some of the key points from it …
Firstly, The Athletic looked at Why did the USWNT-Canada match continue? Explaining the rules around postponing games. It says:
“Technically and practically by law it is always in the ultimate decision of the referee to make that decision,” professional referee and CBS rule analyst Christina Unkel said during the halftime broadcast, “It was very clear from her [the referee’s] demonstrative showing that she does not necessarily think this is a safe condition, but is being told to continue this match by that match commissioner.”
Secondly, Football South Australia cancelled all Junior and Community Women's matches last weekend due to extreme heat. What’s of particular interest here is that this decision was taken in line with their extreme heat policy. Such a policy does not exist in many regions of world football. And where it does, it can be considered inadequate. Here is an excerpt from Football SA’s policy, on their approach which others could learn and build on:
Thirdly, from the wider sports world, the shocking story that Some fans at frigid Chiefs playoff game underwent amputations, hospital confirms. AP News reports that “The game in Kansas City went on … even though the National Weather Service warned of “dangerously cold” windchills”.
Clubs
Chelsea and Liverpool
In the UK, new rules for large businesses which meet certain conditions mean they will publish details on their climate governance, risk, strategy, targets and metrics. Five or so clubs, and possibly the FA, will need to publish these in their accounts. Chelsea and Liverpool are first out of the blocks. You can find their full disclosures here in one handy document I’ve created.
Chelsea have identified five risks - from climate change, extreme weather, reputational risk, emissions from fan travel, and supply chain instability. Liverpool focus on two key risks, from increased storms (which have already affected the club this season) and the impacts of sustained temperature increases on players, coaches, staff, and fans.
I’ll report here what others say too when they are published.
Spurs
The club have put out their full emissions figures for 2022/3 here. Alongside this they have also published a carbon reduction plan including a decarbonisation roadmap, summarised in the table here:
Any views or insight on this plan are welcome. On emissions, Spurs are the only club so far to publish details of their emissions by all 15 ‘scope 3’ categories. Arguably, its a more rigorous approach than any other club is taking so far.
The figures show a yearly increase of emissions of nearly 11% to 93,894 tco2e. This is led by a large increase in the ‘purchased goods and services’ category. It will make it harder for the club to meet their target of reducing emissions by 50% by 2030.
Manchester City
Manchester City have announced plans for their training facility to install solar panels which will generate up to 4.39 MWh of renewable energy every year.
All additional renewable energy is to be welcomed and the news had a lot of press coverage. Perhaps, some further context in the coverage would have been useful too. Man City's total energy use in 2022/23 was 21,697 MWh. In this context, the new solar panel energy generation is a small if positive change.
This highlights that if we are to really shift the dial, important national policy initiatives are necessary too. The UN has called on organisations to align their advocacy, policy and engagement with net zero goals:
“Corporate climate leaders should use their powerful voices, activities and associations to call for ambitious actions by governments”.
Are clubs and bodies, here and elsewhere, using their powerful voices to call for more ambitious actions by governments? We are not seeing anything publicly, (beyond Forest Green Rovers) but it could be happening behind closed doors. Does anyone have any insights to share? And let’s hope to see more action and visibility on this front grows going forward.
Pre-season plans
Newcastle United and Spurs will make a 21,000-mile round trip to play in Australia in May. The game will be three days after the end of the football season, and before the Euros and Copa America begin. “It's a great example of the disconnect at clubs between those working on sustainability initiatives and those focused on revenue,” says Felix Keith of The Mirror. An Independent article leads with clubs setting 'the wrong example', looking at issues including player health and the number of games.
Four more Premier League clubs have announced pre-season travel plans here. Expect to see further updates from clubs shortly. As previously noted in this newsletter, clubs have more control over these fixtures than others. Opportunities for them to make more environmentally friendly choices for pre-season matches are greater.
FIFA
FIFA says decisions on the hosts of the next five annual men’s and women’s U-17 competitions (Qatar and Morocco) were taken with "a focus on leveraging the use of existing footballing infrastructure in the interest of tournament efficiencies and sustainability". It’s not clear what, if any, environmental assessment was carried out. Separately, four different sustainability reports that FIFA committed to publish in 2023 are still not out.
In other news
Clubs
Jorginho, Declan Rice and Gabriel Jesus launched the Arsenal and Ball Corporation Green Gooners Cup to find Arsenal’s greenest supporter.
Los Angeles FC coach, Steve Cherundolo, was fined $10,000 by MLS for saying a match should not have been played in extreme weather.
Northampton Town Football Club Community Trust has launched an innovative campaign to reduce food waste, in partnership, with Final Third and Planet League.
Tour of the Alps and FC Südtirol have partnered to promote sports and sustainable mobility among fans. An interesting collaboration between different sports.
At Watford FC a Supporter Wins Season Tickets In February Prize Draw linked to participating in a club sustainability initiative.
And also …
Key takeaways from a workshop on ‘Fan Engagement in Climate Change and Sustainability’, hosted by Pledgeball.
What will environmentally sustainable football look like? Five key points by Barney Weston of Football for Future.
Emma Ilijoski of Canberra United talks with ActionFC about how players can use their platform to advocate for change in the climate space.
The Champions Innovate Pledge League with Mastercard has been launched by Pledgeball. Fans of Champions League clubs can pledge actionable steps towards addressing climate change.
With Sheffield City Council banning harmful advertising, including fossil fuels, The Game Changer Sponsorship Pledge says “It's time for sport to follow their lead!”
“Let’s Decarbonize The Stadiums”. The Big Shift Interim Report. Published today, I’ve only glanced at it so far.
5 ways your sports club can benefit from being more sustainable by Sport Wales.
In the UK, A Department for Transport Minister met with Arsenal, the Rail Delivery Group and others to discuss how to reduce the carbon footprint of match days. No more details are available on what was discussed.
Leo Messi Captains Fight Against Climate Change With Join The Planet by Vitas Carosella in Forbes.
How Can AI In Sports Score For Environment And Climate? by Claire Poole of Sport Positive. On 25th May the team behind The Sustainability Report are hosting a Sustainability Huddle on AI and sport.
Euro 2024: The most sustainable football championship of all time? A useful long-read. It includes views on the EURO 2024 Climate Fund and who will, and will not, benefit from it
Podcast: Loughborough University, Experts in Sport podcast on The sports apparel waste problem with Joanna Czutkowna of 5Thread
Levy UK, suppliers of food and drink to many clubs, have entered into a partnership with Notpla, to provide biodegradable food packaging.
Long Read: UEFA’s Carbon Calculator in Context
The launch of the UEFA calculator is a welcome step forward on the football and climate change agenda. As a previous post in this newsletter said: “A standardised approach to carbon reporting is a prerequisite to better understanding the scale of the challenge, informing priorities, enhancing collaboration, and accelerating progress.”
Thom Rawson has written a great post in this newsletter about the newly launched calculator, looking at what a future version of the tool could include, and the need to also consider a simpler and more accessible version for smaller organisations.
This note takes stock of how the calculator fits into the wider picture.
In Europe
The launch of the calculator takes place against a backdrop where the European Union has committed to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2050. In addition to these targets, in February 2024, the European Commission called for EU countries to adopt a further intermediate step to reduce emissions by 90% by 2040 as part of a new roadmap.
At present, EU countries are predicted to achieve a 48% reduction by 2030, leaving a seven percentage point gap to the 2030 target. In recent days, a ground-breaking report by the European Environment Agency notes that Europe is not prepared for rapidly growing climate risks and says “the pace of annual reductions in Europe must more than double compared with the annual progress seen since 2005”. UEFA includes many more countries than the EU, but the picture should be clear - more action and faster emissions reductions are urgently needed.
In sport
A December 2023 report by the European Commission on green sport says that emissions goals demand collective action from every sector. It makes clear that sport is no exception, but that sport “should be assumed to be significantly off track in delivering Green Deal objectives”. In more depth, it says that:
“Perhaps the greatest challenges for the sector are a widespread lack of understanding of ts environmental impacts, a scarceness of data and the frequent absence of any strategy or policy responses. Most sport organisations, from International to grassroots level, lack a sustainability strategy and corresponding governance structure, job responsibilities, and measuring and reporting commitments. Without these basic tools (which are usually normal practice for the financial or coaching elements of the organisation) consistent progress on sustainability will fail.”
Again, while the focus in the report is on the EU countries and sport as a whole, there is no reason to assume the situation is different for UEFA members.
How the calculator fits in with all this
The UEFA carbon calculator addresses one of the key problems identified in the European Commission Report, and one of the areas recognised as essential to new European disclosure requirements - metrics. By “zooming in on the importance of measurement as a key strategic step” it aims help to “improve consistency, provide clarity of reported information and support efforts toward comparability over time”. As stated above, this is welcome and essential.
At the same time, further development of the carbon calculator is needed. Alongside this, and as mentioned at the UEFA launch event, the calculator is not intended as a magic bullet. There are a range of additional issues that must be addressed if we are to see the progress needed.
What’s next?
Since UEFA’s 2030 sustainability strategy was published in 2021 circumstances have changed. As outlined above, our understanding of the progress being made in reducing emissions, the risks we face, the actions and targets needed, and the challenges faced specifically in sport, has grown considerably.
Drawing on the European Commission report and other sources, a non-exhaustive list of issues that need further attention in football to enable the action needed includes governance, strategy, targets, business relationships, scheduling, funding, communication, responses to extreme weather and more.
It’s clear that the actions and plans in the UEFA sustainability strategy will not by themselves address all these issues, nor meet the scale of the challenge we now face. While it is for all in the football community to take action, not just UEFA, it is surely timely for UEFA to look again at its strategy.
When published, the UEFA 2030 strategy envisaged a “review of the strategy’s effectiveness and architecture in 2025”. With the need to accelerate climate action clearer than ever, a big conversation needs to begin now on what transformative action is needed in European football. The calculator is a welcome step forward, now let's get running on the many other steps needed too.
Calculator Round-up
There are a few more thoughts on specific points on the calculator which I hope to get around to writing up soon. In the meantime, elsewhere on the calculator …
Udinese Calcio become the first club to officially confirm they will use UEFA's Carbon Footprint Calculator
Claire Poole of Sport Positive in Forbes: “UEFA Launches Carbon Footprint Calculator For Football”
Climate Scientist, Katharine Hayhoe on the need for targets as well as metrics in Front Office Sports: ‘UEFA Installed a Stadium Carbon Footprint Calculator. A Climate Scientist Wants to See More’ from
Michael Viggars of Healthy Stadia on spectator travel and opportunities for clubs to reduce emissions
Joanna Czutkowna of 5Thread with some key takeaways from the launch event
And not directly related, but adding some useful context to UEFA’s approach: ”Materiality assessment in sport – an opportunity and call for research” by Anne Dietrich and Brian P. McCullough in Managing Sport and Leisure.
That’s all folks! All comments, corrections and feedback are welcome. See you next time, maybe next week, as there seems to be a whole lotta stuff happening.
Fran James (he/him)
Football and Climate Change Newsletter
footballandclimatechange@gmail.com
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