Green Football Weekend
To help raise awareness of both football’s negative impact on the planet and what fans and clubs can do to reduce this, Green Football Weekend brings together the UK’s professional football clubs, leagues, broadcasters and the country’s footballing community to tackle climate change head-on.
Last year, more than 100 players and 115 clubs from the Premier League, English Football League, and Women’s Super League participated. Whilst this year’s focus is on reducing the volume of football clothing going to waste – around 100,000 tonnes a year ends up in landfill, the equivalent of 500 million football shirts – the weekend aims to shine a light on the climate effects of football in general.
Over the years we’ve had a few forays into the beautiful game. Back in 2013, our report Door to Turnstile looked at how well topflight clubs did at helping fans travel to matches sustainably. Last year, we challenged England’s men’s team to travel to their UEFA European Championships group matches by coach, rather than flying, and of course we are part of the Carbon Boot campaign, which aims to highlight the number of domestic flights taken by Premier League clubs in the course of a season.
Football clubs are no different from big companies when it comes to their impact on the planet and one area where businesses can really make an impact and reduce their carbon emissions is through business travel.
We know that 25 per cent of global air travel is for business purposes, and we’ve helped companies reduce the volume of flights they are taking through joint campaigns like Travel Smart.
We think football clubs – like all big businesses – have a duty to reduce their carbon emissions from business travel and only fly when it is absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, that isn’t what we’ve found through the Carbon Boot campaign.
Carbon Boot is a partnership between Campaign for Better Transport, Leith and Fossil Free Football. Throughout the football season, the ‘Carbon Boot’ is awarded to teams for their ‘outstanding contributions to football’s carbon footprint’, whenever an unnecessary flight is taken.
What we’ve discovered is that half of Premier League clubs’ trips to away games are now taken by plane, with topflight teams having already clocked up over 20,000 air miles this season alone. Three teams have each travelled over 2,300 miles by air, with some of those flights only covering 100 miles!
We think that the majority of Premier League clubs’ flights to away games are completely unnecessary and that all football clubs should commit to flying less.
Around 14.8 million people attended a Premier League game last season. Many of those fans are not just concerned about their team’s performance on the pitch, they want to see good performance off the pitch too. Eight out of ten fans who saw the Green Football Weekend campaign on Sky Sports last year said it made them want to do more to combat the climate crisis.
“Football has the unbelievable power to unite everyone – clubs, players and fans from across the community – with a common goal to take action.”
– Gary Lineker, Green Football Weekend Ambassador
We think it’s time for Premier League clubs to lead by example when it comes to reducing their impact on the planet and take the train or coach to more domestic matches. Afterall, 84 per cent of Premier League games can be reached in less than 4.5 hours by coach so committing to flying less should be easy.
This Green Football Weekend, we want football clubs to focus on reducing the climate impact of their transport choices. A coach journey is seven times less damaging for the planet than the equivalent flight, and with clubs’ executive, luxury coaches, it’s hardly a chore! So come on clubs, stand up for the planet and pledge to fly less from now on.
