International Mother Earth Day
Thursday, 22 April is Earth Day. Earth Day was founded 51 years ago when thousands of people came together in the United States to speak up and demand cleaner air and water. Today, Earth Day mobilises more than one billion people and acts as a major catalyst of change to protect our planet, fight climate change and take action to promote the world’s ecosystems. Tens of thousands of initiatives, actions and virtual events will be organised all over the globe.
The 2015 Paris Agreement, concluded by 196 Parties under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) has set as a binding goal to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably 1,5 degrees Celcius, compared to pre-industrial levels. The EU has committed to becoming a carbon-neutral continent by no later than 2050, reducing carbon emissions already by 55% by 2030. These are bold, but achievable goals if everybody plays its full part.
Football clubs can be both role models and trailblazers. They can take action to limit their own environmental footprint, for example, use renewable energy sources to power their stadiums, reduce and recycle the waste they produce or by making it easier for fans to come to games by bike or using public transport. They can work with local governments to help make their local communities more sustainable. And they can raise awareness amongst their fans and encourage them to support sustainability more widely. Earth Day is a good occasion to highlight how many clubs are already making a positive change for our planet and our environment. Every week, more clubs are teaming up to promote sustainability, even though there is important scope for progress since many clubs still lack a sustainability strategy and concrete action.
Below, we have assembled some EFDN and EFDN member initiatives regarding sustainability, climate change and other related topics.
SDG STRIKER
The contribution of sport to development is acknowledged by the United Nations in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. According to UN, sport can have strong positive impact on the following Sustainable Development Goals:
- Health and wellbeing.
- Education’s quality.
- Gender equality.
- Economic growth and availability of decent job opportunities.
- Reduction of poverty and malnutrition.
- Proper water management and sanitation.
- Peace and justice.
- Responsible consumption and production.
- Protection of the environment and climate action.
- Sustainability of cities and communities.
- Reduction of inequalities.
- Affordable and clean energy.
- Innovation for a proper and sustainable industry and infrastructure.
SDG Striker is a project that aimes to motivate the football federations and clubs of different European countries to disseminate and attain the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by testing and assessing the potential replication of best practices in their sport events and infrastructure. Some of these best practices are:
- The substitution of artificial turf by more sustainable alternatives in Norwegian sport facilities.
- The installation of renewable energy systems in Portuguese sport facilities.
- The improvement on energy efficiency in Scottish football installations and the palliation of energy poverty in Scotland through the football community.
GREENFOOT
The Greenfoot project will develop and implement a community-based financing scheme for renovating football buildings including stadiums, practice facilities and related buildings (e.g. team headquarters, fitness centres) with energy efficiency and renewable energy measures. The central social innovation of GREENFOOT is to develop creative crowdfunding investment packages that allow sports fans and community members to partner with their favourite clubs to improve energy use, fight climate change and contribute to a cleaner local environment. The project includes international football organisations as partners, a strong link with UEFA that EFDN looks forward to collaborating with. The concept is to finance football building energy efficiency renovations and renewable energy installations through a crowd-funding scheme that propels Europeans to become active participants in the energy transition through their love of football. Read more about the Greenfoot programme here.
