Wolverhampton Wanderers Energy and Carbon Report 21/22
A look at what the club says in their Annual Report
Wolves Annual Report for the year to 31 May 2022 was published on Monday and is available here. It includes a mandatory annual Streamlined Energy and Carbon Report (SECR).
These reports aim to “increase awareness of energy costs within organisations, provide them with data to inform adoption of energy efficiency measures and to help them to reduce their impact on climate change. They also seek to provide greater transparency for stakeholders”.
This can be quite technical stuff. If you have any expertise on these and want to share them, please comment below, write a post here, or get in touch. In the meantime, here are a few points I have noted:
Wolves have become the first Premier League club to publish figures in their annual report that include a full ‘scope 3’ emissions assessment. This is an important and positive step forward. It raises the bar for best practice by clubs in their annual reports.
Manchester City is the only other Premier League club that currently measures and reports annually on their scope 3 emissions (in this very useful report) though that report is not part of the SECR in their annual accounts.
All clubs SECRs to date have focussed on mandatory information related to electricity and gas use (scope 1 and 2 emissions). Scope 3 emissions also include fan travel, club travel and more. More explanation on these scopes is here.
Scope 3 reporting is not mandatory, though is strongly encouraged in Government guidance. Wolves note that these “emissions are highly material and therefore an important part of WWFC's environmental sustainability strategy”.
Alongside the mandatory SECR disclosures Wolves also present, helpfully, other useful information in regard to their sustainability work. This includes highlighting their work on a club environmental strategy, working with Football For Future, as part of an ambition for the club to “become industry leaders in environmental sustainability”. The resultant strategy commitments were published last month and are here.
Here is the key table on emissions presented in the report:
Some points to note on this:
Scope 1 and 2 emissions went down by just over 8%, and associated energy consumption by nearly 5.7%. The report includes a useful narrative report on energy efficiency measures that have contributed to these reductions.
Scope 3 emissions account for 11,358 tCO2e (87%) of 13,041 tCO2e total emissions reported (inc. 912 tCO2e location-based emissions).
Scope 3 emissions for fan travel are 11,064 tCO2e. The only figure I have seen for fan travel from any other Premier League club are those for Manchester City who report 7648 tCO2e for 20/21.
There is obviously quite a difference between the figures presented by the two clubs and the reasons for it are not clear at this stage. It could be to do with local transport connections, methodologies used, or a number of other reasons.
Scope 3 reporting is widely recognised as complex. Over time as best practices, methodologies and analyses are shared a clearer picture of these emissions across different clubs should emerge. In the meantime, the publication of these figures from both clubs is very useful and demonstrates that fan travel emissions are orders of magnitude higher than those from other categories of emissions.
The table also usefully reports both location-based (mandatory) and market-based figures (voluntary) for scope 2 emissions in a clear way. More on those different accounting approaches is here.
Alongside a mandatory intensity ratio used based on turnover, the club uses an innovative ‘home match’ intensity metric. The report says this has been “selected to enable comparison with prior year performance and give context to the organisations reported emissions”.
Wondering out loud, it would be interesting to consider if this intensity metric, or something similar, could be built on to also enable comparisons between clubs?
A few additional notes:
I’ve not attempted to compare SECR emissions figures for different clubs yet. As more 2021/22 annual reports accounts are published I’ll look into doing so.
SECR’s are only mandatory for businesses with a turnover of £36 million or more, a balance sheet of £18 million, or more than 250 employees. In effect, this likely means mainly Premier League clubs, though I will keep an eye out for others.
I’d be interested to hear about any reporting requirements in other countries.
For a more detailed analysis of Premier League clubs sustainability commitments see Sport Positive Premier League 2021. A 2022 update should be out soon.
For a more detailed analysis of Wolves annual accounts see Kieran Maguire.
This is my third look at one of these club SECR’s. The others are Spurs and Liverpool. I’d welcome any feedback, corrections or suggestions on any aspects of it.
Fran James (he/him)
Football and Climate Change Newsletter
@fbandclimate
footballandclimatechange@gmail.com