Sustainability in Football

 by Archie B

Forest Green stadium

Football. Many people live and breathe the beautiful game. But, problems arise, both on, and off the pitch. This can involve fans, players, or the managers in the dugout. It could be an argument breaking out between opposing teams, a fan protest, a pitch invasion, players falling out. But the main problem that has recently come to the forefront of public perception; Sustainability in football. Climate change is a major global issue, which is caused by a number of factors. You may not disagree with this yet wonder, how does this link with football? Well, think of the extensive amount of miles that the players and coaching squads travel just to get to the stadium. To add to this, thousands of fans flock to the stadiums similarly to the team buses, which cause an enormous amount of greenhouse gases to be emitted into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change. Another way in which football is contributing to our global carbon emissions issue, is the energy used in the stadiums across the world; think of the towering floodlights used so often to illuminate the pitches many times a week especially in the winter months when they are even needed for day time matches. Adding onto this, it is estimated that the global football industry produces more than 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, roughly the equivalent of the total emissions generated by Denmark. I think this stat perfectly summarises this topic. For example, the last world cup, held in Qatar, in just merely one month, emitted 3.6 million tCO2e, surpassing the previous four world cups. This is absolutely inconceivable to me. However, amongst all these utterly shocking and depressing facts, there are some shining lights in the world of football…

Johan Cruyff Arena

On the outskirts of Amsterdam, a relatively modern, humongous football stadium stands tall and vast, but there's far more to the stadium's structure and how its run, than one may first presume. More than 4,200 solar panels on the roof and a wind turbine in Oudendijk supply green energy to the ArenA. LED floodlighting is used to save enormous amounts of energy. Energy-generating escalators in the main building. Smart sensors monitor the pitch. LED grow lighting and sustainable heating help the grass remain in top condition through the year. Plenty of charging points in the car park where electric cars recharge and supply energy. The dressing rooms and offices are cooled with water from nearby lake Ouderkerkerplas. This is certainly a forward thinking and positive list of innovations. It is made all the more impressive by the fact that the arena has a roofed stadium and is therefore enclosed yet the club still find ways of being as eco-friendly as they can. 

Forest Green Rovers

This football club may not be known as much for their footballing ability, but they are extremely eco-friendly, with many outstanding facts about the club's journey to where they are now.  At the gates they have a small solar array -the club also have solar panels covering a whole stand- and together these provide around 20% of the stadium's annual electric needs. The scoreboard is LED and running around the pitch there are state of the art LED boards all powered by a battery that’s charged from the sun. For any extra energy the club needs this is supplied by Ecotricity – providing 100% renewable electricity and carbon neutral gas. 

The club provides group travel for away games- to help cut down on carbon emissions- so fans can all travel on the same coach. Whereas for home games, the club offers park and ride travel, or there are cycle parking points, whilst also having electric car charging areas. 

Another fascinating fact about Forest Green Rovers, is that all- yes all- of the players and coaching staff are vegan. At home matches, nothing but vegan food is prepared and served as far as the eye can see. Here is an extract from the website of FGR; ‘When it comes to food it seems that the whole world knows that we’re a vegan club (the players even take vegan food to their away matches)’. This evidence shows that the players and coaching staff are fully on board with being vegan as they respect the choices that the club makes. For some it does of course mean they will have to change their lifestyle whilst at the club but I’m sure the players and coaching staff are looking at the bigger picture; Sustainability in Football.

So to conclude, I think that there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of sustainability in football, but there are some building blocks that are being cemented currently, which could just open up a new chapter, changing a few teams being fully sustainable, to hundreds. I think football clubs need to stop looking at the current picture and how quickly and efficiently they can get to matches and start looking at the future and what football clubs can do to help in our upward battle to try and save our planet from being destroyed by our carbon emissions.