Bristol City And Plymouth Argyle Are Showing Green Soccer Is Possible

Bristol City is having a great season pushing for a spot in the Premier League, but it’s also one of the most environmentally sustainable soccer clubs in the country.

At least half the food sold on matchdays is locally sourced with plenty of plant-based options available, unsold food is given to a homeless shelter, and waste is composted on-site.

Bristol City’s green push was put into focus by an unlikely source: a BBC documentary.

After the Blue Planet 2 documentary, people across the UK upped their efforts to reduce plastic waste. Peter Smith, the club’s current head of change and sustainability, was in the club’s coffee shop when he asked the staff which trash can he should put some plastic in. That’s when he realized “there’s a lot of people with energy and enthusiasm… but not really joining it up.”

That was back in 2018, but in the past few years, things have really moved forward at the club, leading it to be the first club in the English Football League to earn Greencode Accreditation.

Sport and the environment are more closely linked than some would like to admit. Extreme weather like heatwaves can make it too dangerous to play sport, and many soccer pitches in the UK are in low-lying areas at risk of flooding.

In League Two, the fourth tier of English soccer, Carlisle United’s chairman has said that flood insurance for the club’s stadium is “increasingly unaffordable.” Fellow League Two side Wimbledon FC’s pitch was also destroyed by flooding in September.

Smith says that soccer has the ability to communicate with an audience that might not otherwise engage in green issues. Bristol City’s focus on using local food and drink also helps increase buy-in as fans have an attachment to local businesses. He says while there has been some pushback on social media, the vast majority of Bristol City fans are hugely supportive of the club’s sustainability push.

As if to prove his point about support for environmental causes, Millwall fans, often lazily stereotyped as hooligans more interested in Green Street than going green, are proving how outdated such stereotypes are by leading one environmental league table.

Pledgeball is an initiative where fans compete in a league with other clubs by taking pledges such as switching to a milk alternative or going vegan for two days a week to reduce their carbon footprint. Pledgeball’s CEO Katie Cross says Millwall’s strong community program could be why they are topping the Pledgeball league.

She says the majority of people in the UK are concerned about climate change but they tend not to talk about it because they feel others might not necessarily agree with them. Rather than trying to guilt people into certain behaviors, Pledgeball aims to shift attitudes so that soccer fans can get involved, talk with each other and feel more empowered by their actions.

Another club praised for its green efforts is Plymouth Argyle, who recently stayed overnight in Manchester to reduce coach travel.

The club from England’s southwest coast has some of the longest away trips in the country, but aims to make that travel as sustainable as possible. If there are two away fixtures in the north of England within a few days of each other, the team will book hotels rather than travel to Plymouth and back.

But while such overnight stays have made the headlines, Plymouth’s efforts at its home stadium are arguably more impressive. Its refurbished grandstand has efficiency built in, from LED lighting and rainwater harvesting to 229 solar panels on the roof which power the whole stadium. Christian Kent, head of venue, hospitality and events at Argyle, says the players there have really bought into what the club is doing and have even switched to electric cars which they can charge for cheap at the club due to the solar panels on the grandstand.

The EFL Championship, where both Bristol City and Plymouth Argyle currently compete, is one of the most competitive leagues in world soccer, so any advantage a club can gain could make the difference between pushing for promotion or battling relegation.

Both sides try to choose sustainable sponsorship deals, with Plymouth having an official policy to not take gambling sponsors. While this could be seen as missing out on easy money, the clubs say that in fact it makes them more attractive to sponsors that share their values.

But those clubs don’t want to be a lone voice.

There have been efforts to get CEOs and top-level decision makers to Bristol City’s Ashton Gate stadium to discuss what soccer can do. But for clubs to fully achieve their green goals, they need to get the soccer authorities onside. Kent says Plymouth’s next big goal is to make travel to the games more sustainable. But that needs help from match schedulers, such as ensuring that kick-off times allow away fans to travel by train.

Smith says Bristol City are “very keen that we take others along with us and celebrate the successes for what they are” so that other clubs “see the potential of it and join the journey.”