Does anyone know of clubs who are trying to become carbon neutral in their impact upon the environment, and, in what ways they are trying to do it ? With whole towns having to face up to this issue what is football doing ? The government is currently working on schemes for the emission friendly future of top sporting events - but what can we do ? Ideas could include things like Solar panels on the roofs of stands, a winter break ensuring that floodlighting and undersoil heating are reduced. Free public transport for those with tickets for the stadium to and from matches (At least within a certain radius) as in Germany. More local products on sale on the catering side. Players getting a bicycle as part of their signing on fees (Instead of a BMW). Or even turning of the dressing room heating (for the away side!). All ideas welcome, even silly ones !
maybe the club could do something with travelling fans. So many cars going to matches...most people don't even consider going on the coaches. Perhaps if they reduce the cost of the coaches, more people would go on them, and in turn..less carbon emissions
Reduce the game to 40 mins each way would save 10% of lighting. Limit Sky to one hand held camera that a man could bring along on a bus and get rid of the lorries. Make players wear their kit twice saving 50% on the washing machines. Make club owners walk to the ground, good for their health and the environment, so preventing foreign owners seeing what they have got for the money and reducing air travel.
Scunthorpe have had the idea of playing half the match in darkness with no floodlights. Although seriously, maybe instead of each player driving to the match have them get a coach from the training ground, or something. On the lines of W_Y's point, why not use the hot air from the Sky/BBC pundits and the ****e they call insight and use it to power the heating!
Whilst I realize that global warming is maybe not no. 1 on every fans debating list governments all over the World are committed to 80% reductions in emissions before 2050. Which will affect all walks of life, and sporting events are no exception. An example of how decisions in sport can effect the environment was the idiotic decision to send the last World Cup to South Africa. The Carbon footprint of this event was estimated as being 8-9 times higher than that of the previous World Cup in Germany, because of all the internal flights involved. The impact of our domestic football is not so dramatic although, according to research from Cardiff University, at the Cup Final in 2004 between Man.U and Millwall the carbon footprint of each fan was 7 times the national average. The 73,000 fans travelled an estimated 43 million km. with 47 % covered by car - if this had changed to public transport the impact would have been reduced by 24%. To give a perspective the average premier league match produces 820 Tonnes of carbon Dioxide. More on our level, Ipswich Town calculated theirs as being roughly 3,200 tonnes per season - what they did about it can be seen under www.carbon-innovation.com, case study Ipswich Town. I feel that all clubs should be looking at solutions now, rather than being dragged along on a compulsory footing in a few years time, the question is, which measures are likely to be effective - or, are realistic ?
They could start matches earlier so you don't have to use the flood lights.Also they should have some sort of application where you can download the match programme instead of having it in paper or have some paper match programmes and an app.
They could commit to nucleor power and hydrogen technology. Otherwise im not at all interested. Unless they introduce sustainable fisheries i wont do one dot for carbon emmision. The only answer at the moment is tax tax tax untill politicians come up with a better solution i will ignore them
Maybe they could install Solar Panel cells on the roofs of the stadium. Like the idea of downloadable programmes - iphone/ipad app, but then how many people have these? As a general football one, the starting of weekend matches earlier during the winter, so no need for floodlights, I think is a good one
You are of course quite right, Cologne, but I have enjoyed the facetious answers especially Norway's about Savage. The idea of putting panels on the roofs of stands has got to be a winner. What's to lose? Quite an acreage of real estate when you add all the grounds up. Maybe architecturally some stands would have a load bearing problem with the extra weight? They must have a pretty large compensatory extra strength built in to cope with eg heavy snow falls.
There are two main areas of concern for carbon emissions and professional sport: 1) transport of teams and supporters; and 2) concrete in stadiums. Floodlighting, whilst not energy efficient, is minor in comparison and probably the easiest to fix - play games in daylight. The EU has set targets to reduce transport energy in cities by 50% by 2050 and increase rail usage for journeys of less than 300km (i think) by a similar figure.. The problem of stadiums is more difficult. The creaton of concrete produces huge quantities if carbon. I don't have the figures to hand but a house made with concrete must have a lifecycle of well over a hundred years before it becomes carbon efficient. A football stadium only has limited use so it would have to last a lot longer. If they were made of wood, that would be a different matter because they would become carbon sinks. Another problem id televised sport. Electronic equipment uses large amounts of energy. Internet servers alone account for about 1.5% of US electricity usage. I can go on and on about this but I don't have access to the data at the moment and I'm typing with my left hand as a sleepong child is in my other arm!
I wonder if they could 'force' away supporters to travel together, en masse. Eg, the Southampton game at Pompey coming up, you have to take the club coach, and you only get your match ticket once you have boarded the coach. This is obviously a safety measure, but would this be something they would consider to cut down on so many individual vehicles going to a game... This wouldn't work for every supporter, as people come from all areas, and some by train already... But I wonder if this could become more popular. There is also the option of more park-and-ride options, leaving traffic out of the centre of towns/cities. Or maybe they could just bring back the specials....
Used to enjoy the match day specials! part of the atmosphere and build up to the game Should be brought back ! Might take a few more to away games of we did!
Ban away support altogether! Then we could erect a huge screen in front of the Main Stand, have all the away games screened at The Vic, half the price of entry to attract more home fans who'll be able to watch double the number of games. Well it might work.
