Sustainability in sport leads football club to success
Sustainability in sport? The English Football club Forest Green Rovers shows impressively how sustainable events and the company management with Sustainability Strategy lead to success.
UN Certificate and FIFA Award
A misconception that is still circulating in the minds of many stadium and arena owners as well as event organizers: the costs of events of all kinds automatically go up if they are implemented under aspects of sustainability and there is no added value for the operator anyway. That this is not the case is shown by the English football club Forest Green Rovers. Not only was the club named the greenest club in the world by Fifa, it also received a certificate from the UN as the first climate-neutral and vegan football club in the world.
Reaching new target groups with sustainability in sport
The changeover to a climate-neutral football club did not happen overnight, of course. Club boss Dale Vince initially only supported the club as a financial backer until he took over the club in 2010 to save it from insolvency. The founder of the green electricity company Ecotricity saw the takeover as an opportunity to make a new target group aware of the dangers of climate change and did not miss the opportunity to integrate the issue of sustainability into the club.
Sustainability strategy as a strategy for success
The kitchen was changed to vegan for catering during the match days as well as for the players: from now on, no animal products were used and the food and beer were only offered as vegan varieties. The stadium is also powered by 100 percent renewable energy, 20 percent of which is generated by the solar panels on the stadium roof. The lawn is not treated with pesticides and is also irrigated with collected rainwater and mowed by a solar-powered mowing robot.
Sustainability as a driver for new business ideas
But how does this result in a financial advantage? First of all, clubs would probably assume that all these purchases cost a lot of money, without any savings or income being generated. However, the shift in the kitchen towards vegan food led to a threefold increase in sales during a match day. It also created a vegan catering service that not only cooks for its own stadium, but also supplies clubs such as Chelsea FC and Norwich City. The jerseys are now no longer made of synthetic fibres but are made of bamboo, which meant that they had to be re-ordered three times during the first season of the launch to meet demand.
Does vegan nutrition increase athletic success?
Whether or not it is due to the vegan diet can only be guessed. What is striking, however, is that since the change in the players' diet, athletic performance has increased significantly and the club has moved up to the second division for the first time in 130 years. It is also worthwhile to calculate the energy consumption accurately and the potential savings to be made.
Sustainability strategy leads to cost reduction and profit maximization
Good environmental management therefore not only includes enormous opportunities for cost reduction, but also offers potential for profit maximisation.
Sustainability strategy leads to continuous development
But for Dale Vince, these measures are not enough. In the near future, an electric bus will take the players to their away missions. Also a new stadium built entirely of wood and thus the smallest CO2 footprint of any arena in the world is already on the agenda.
Best practice for success in sustainability in sport
Both stadium operators and event organisers can see the opportunities that climate change brings with it from the example of the English football club Forest Green Rovers. Organising events with sustainable aspects in mind does not necessarily mean increasing costs. The English club shows that with the right management, both financial benefits and cost reductions can be achieved.
