How fans can help football become more eco-friendly
The sports industry has also joined the fight against climate change. Good news, if Europe is to meet its ambitious targets to tackle climate change, it will need all industries to work towards this goal. However, as a LIFE TACKLE survey of football club managers showed, while many clubs are motivated to take environmental action, they’re still lagging behind in concrete sustainability measures. The EU-funded GREENFOOT project is now showing us a way that both stakeholders and the general public can help reduce the football industry’s carbon footprint. The solution the project proposes is to raise funds for energy efficiency renovations and renewable energy installations in sports buildings through crowdfunding.
Why crowdfunding is a good solution
Speaking at the 15th European Football for Development Network (EFDN) Conference, GREENFOOT coordinator Jed Cohen explained how it’s not only club managers who are interested in climate action. Fans also value actions that protect natural resources and prevent pollution. Crowdfunding can therefore give environmentalists and football fans an opportunity to join forces with stadium owners and football managers and invest in their club’s energy transition. The leading models in Europe’s steadily growing crowdfunding market are peer-to-peer lending and equity crowdfunding, in which fewer people participate while getting higher benefits. Also currently on the rise is reward-based crowdfunding, with more people contributing a smaller amount of money. Cohen also provided examples of other sustainability actions in football that are funded by the EU. His presentation is available in PowerPoint format on the EFDN website.
Best practices in energy efficient renovations
The GREENFOOT concept can be applied to all types of sports-related buildings, such as stadiums, training facilities and club headquarters. Each building has different needs and uses that affect its energy behaviour. Renovations are definitely needed, since most of Europe’s sport facilities were built between the 1960s and the 1980s, before the world became aware of the urgent need for climate action. In fact, sports buildings consume huge amounts of energy. Stadiums in particular can consume as much energy during a football match as an average city uses up during that same period of time. The project has therefore published a report providing a catalogue of different technical solutions for improving energy efficiency or producing renewable energy on site for each building category. The catalogue includes technical details and design parameters, conditions for implementation, and analyses of energy performance, cost savings and adaptability to crowdfunding schemes. It also lists the strengths and barriers of each solution to help stakeholders make informed decisions when planning the renovation of their sports buildings. By drawing on football’s popularity and fans’ sense of community and environmentalist attitudes, GREENFOOT (GReen power and Energy Efficiency iNvestments community-Financed for fOOTball buildings) hopes to make a difference in the fight against climate change. It expects its efforts to trigger primary energy savings of 275 GWh per year and save EUR 158 million annually in final energy consumption. For more information, please see: GREENFOOT project website
Keywords
GREENFOOT, football, stadium, crowdfunding, renewable energy, sports, energy efficiency
