Small town soccer team wins sustainability in sport award

  • Adam Wentworth

Forest Green Rovers, a soccer team based in the English countryside, has won a major award celebrating sustainability in sport.

The club beat much larger rivals Manchester City and the Lord’s Cricket Ground at a ceremony in the Houses of Parliament last night, hosted by the Climate Coalition.

The first ever ‘Green Heart Hero’ Sustainability in Sport award was given to the team for its ongoing aims to become a zero carbon club. Its chairman, Dale Vince, founder of the clean energy company Ecotricity, has implemented a number of changes since buying the club in 2010.

These include building solar panels, which now provide 11.5 percent of its electricity; diverting the majority of its waste from landfill; introducing a fully vegan menu and using a solar-powered robot lawnmower.

The Climate Coalition, which also handed out awards at the ceremony for Greenest Business, MP and School, is a group of 130 organisations, including WWF, Christian Aid, and the RSPB.

Dale Vince said upon receiving the award: “Sustainability and sport are two words that aren’t often seen together, but at Forest Green Rovers we’re bridging that gap and are demonstrating that there is another way”

“We’re really delighted to have our work recognised by the Climate Coalition – it’s another big achievement for the club in what is proving to be a momentous year for us, as we’ve been promoted to the Football League, named by FIFA as the world’s greenest football club and spoken at the UN.”

Claire Perry MP, Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth, who opened the event, said: “I’m so delighted to be supporting the first Green Heart Hero Awards in the grand rooms of Speaker’s House, which show how committed people across the country are in helping to protect the people, wildlife and places they love from climate change.

“From individuals to businesses, more and more people are helping with the transition to cleaner and more secure energy and lower carbon ways of living and working. I wholeheartedly welcome the opportunity to congratulate their incredible work”

 

Climate Action is hosting the 3rd Sustainable Innovation in Sport Forum on 2-3 May at the Amsterdam ArenA in the Netherlands. To find out more, visit the Sustainable Innovation in Sport website.

 

Photo Credit: Ecotricity