August 1 – An English fourth-tier club that is powered by renewable energy, serves vegan food to players, staff and fans and prides itself on being the “greenest” in the world has received a prestigious United Nations commendation.
Forest Green Rovers, who play in League Two, has become the world’s first UN-certified carbon-neutral club having signed up to the Climate Neutral Now initiative for the upcoming season.
The initiative was launched by the UN Climate Change in 2015, and is aimed at encouraging all levels of society – companies, organisations, governments and citizens – to reduce their climate footprints with the aim of achieving a climate neutral world by the middle of this century.
Forest Green plays on an organic pitch, cut by a solar-powered robot lawnmower and all rain is recycled to minimise the club’s use of mains water.
Promoted to the Football League for the first time in the club’s 129-year history last year, they are powered by 100% green energy from Ecotricity – the company founded by the club’s chairman, Dale Vince.
“It’s a real honour to be named carbon neutral by the UN. We’re a small club with big ambitions and it’s fantastic we can work together to champion the sustainability message worldwide,” said Vince.
“I believe it’s only a matter of time before the big boys like Real Madrid, Man United and the San Francisco 49ers follow our example. I think it’s more possible for them than us but the things we do are quite simple, you have to want to do them and they can be done. I’m personally looking forward to working more with the UN to help spread the word about the environment through football.”
Miguel Naranjo, UNFCCC programme officer in sustainable development mechanisms, commented: “From the UN our main goal in dealing with non-state actors meaning anyone who is not national government and to promote additional action, try to facilitate people taking more action and provide recognition for that.
“The UN has limited resources to do that by itself, it has to be done in collaboration with others so Forest Green is an excellent example of an organisation that is doing a lot to address their environmental footprint and serving as an example for others to follow so for us it’s very valuable to showcase what they’re doing.”
“Most of the things that need to be done can be done quite easily, it’s just a matter of making the decision to do it and Forest Green are demonstrating that. We’re really glad to have Forest Green on board because it’s an excellent example of the things that you can do right.”
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