Eintracht Frankfurt towards a More Sustainable Future

Eintracht Frankfurt towards a More Sustainable Future

Eintracht Frankfurt has developed an overarching sustainability strategy and is establishing a sustainability advisory board. The association is thus laying an important foundation for the future.

As early as 2021, Eintracht Frankfurt’s actions were put to the test and its own strategic orientation with regard to sustainability was further developed. The result is an overarching sustainability strategy based on the three dimensions of environment, social (social responsibility) and governance (company management), ESG for short. In this way, the club not only lives up to its social responsibility and role model function, but also ensures the club’s sustainable competitiveness in times of global challenges.

Transparency and measurability a crucial part of the ESG strategy

Transparency and measurability enable an objective assessment, comparability and credibility in the sustainability strategy. In order to be able to evaluate the sustainability of business activities, Eintracht Frankfurt developed an independent ESG tool and rating system tailored to the sports and entertainment industry together with external partners at the beginning of 2021. This rating system is based on more than 300 reliable sustainability criteria that are based on global standards and are checked externally in the course of the rating process. The knowledge gained helps Eintracht Frankfurt to identify strengths and progress, but also weaknesses and areas where action is needed.

After more than 300 sustainability data was recorded throughout the company together with DeKoBe ESG in 2021, esg book created the first independent ESG rating in spring 2022. In the 2021 pilot phase, a result of 59/100 points was achieved, which was slightly improved in the course of the second data collection in 2022 with 66/100 points.

“The data-driven ESG rating is a key milestone for us.“

Axel Hellmann, Spokesman of the Board of Eintracht Frankfurt Football AG

Initiator and critical advisor

A key measure to further anchor sustainability in the club has already been decided: Eintracht Frankfurt is founding a sustainability advisory board with proven experts from business, science and politics. The aim is to establish a platform that enables a critical exchange between the members of the Advisory Board and Eintracht Frankfurt and at the same time serves as a source of ideas for new impulses. The panel consists of five experts:

• Omid Nouripour (Federal Chairman of Alliance 90/The Greens), Chairman of the Advisory Board
• Prof. Dr. Benjamin List (Nobel Prize winner and Director of the Department of Homogeneous Catalysis at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, Mülheim an der Ruhr)
• Prof. Dr. Veronika Grimm (holder of the chair for economic theory, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg; head of the research area energy market design)
• Jörg Eigendorf (Chief Sustainability Officer Deutsche Bank)
• Ferdinand Huhle (Head of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Mainova)

“Football shines across all social milieus and has an immense reach. Sustainability in football reaches many people and helps create the necessary awareness. This is an important step towards a sustainable and climate-neutral future.”

Omid Nouripour, Advisory Board Chairman

Numerous ESG measures have already been implemented independently of the Sustainability Advisory Board. These include, for example, the new construction of the ProfiCamp in the Deutsche Bank Park as a passive house standard and the recent conversion of the floodlights to LEDs, the development of an upcycling range of old jerseys in the merchandising area, the conversion of the vehicle fleet to e-mobility or the clear public positioning against racism and discrimination. Another crucial factor is the combination of innovation and sustainability: As part of the “Arena of IoT”, a sensor-based system for intelligent irrigation of the training areas was installed, which is intended to significantly reduce water consumption.

Axel Hellmann concludes: “We are aware of the challenge that professional football in large stadiums with tens of thousands of visitors and the associated consumption of resources in the areas of mobility, facility management, media use and much more is always in conflict with sustainability-optimized business development. Precisely because of these areas of tension, we want to anchor sustainable thinking and acting even more firmly at all levels in our club. With the development of our ESG strategy, the creation of a rating and the convening of a sustainability advisory board, we have laid an important foundation. Now it is important to pursue the topic with all consistency, to implement specific measures to improve our performance and to take a pioneering role in the area of ​​ESG.”