Birmingham County FA save today to play tomorrow

Birmingham County FA’s environmental responsibility programme is finding new ways for grassroots football to be a fundamental gamechanger in the fight against climate change.

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Birmingham County Football Association are one of the largest regional governing bodies in the English Football Associations network of 49 organisations. Unlike the name suggests, we cover the 3 main cities in the West Midlands, namely Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry, but our reach extends into the Black Country, Walsall, Warwickshire, Tamworth and into East Staffordshire.

Our membership includes 1,200 football clubs, 7 of which are professional, but the majority fall under what is more commonly known as “grassroots”. This number of clubs equates to 5,100 teams, 1,200 match officials, 25,000 volunteers and coaches and upwards of 100,000 regular players participating in all formats of the game. Within the region, over 48,000 affiliated games happen each season.

The Economic Report for Football published by the Football Association in 2019 estimated that for our region, through social and economic value, grassroots football generated c.£522 million to the local economy each season.

On 8 June 2021, we proudly launched Save Today, Play Tomorrow, the first of its kind sustainability programme in the UK that looks to empower and engender grassroots football to support the ambitious goal of creating a low carbon greener game across the region.

As a local governing body, we recognise the need to act now to ensure the beautiful game significantly reduces its environmental impact, whilst helping to educate those involved in football at all levels to make informed decisions that will shape how much future generations will be able to enjoy and sustain the game in the long term.

The programme is made up of four workstreams that are aligned to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Health and Wellbeing, Positive Education, Climate Action and Reconnecting Football with Nature (Bio-Diversity). In February 2021, to coincide with this work, Birmingham County FA were accepted as participatory members of the UN’s Sport for Climate Action Framework, the first County FA to do so, joining the likes of Liverpool FC, Tottenham FC, the International Olympic Committee and over 270 other national and international sports organisations in using the power of sport to combat climate change. Subsequently, we have accelerated our commitment by joining Race to Zero, committing to Net Zero by 2040.

Before launching the programme and continuing after, we made considerable transformational changes to our own facility to ensure we reduced our footprint and can robustly report to the UN and others on our scope 1, 2 & 2 emissions. These changes included.

The installation of a full roof solar array
GHG Protocol aligned net-zero carbon reporting and accounting
Zero to landfill
Installed efficient low energy heating and lighting
Installation of 2 electric vehicle chargers
Moved to digital programmes for all major events and cup finals
Adopted an agile workplace to reduce staff travel to/from the office
Installed additional water refill stations on site for public use
Qualified 5 members of staff as mental health champions
Switched to organic pitch maintenance products
Staff completed carbon literacy training
Created the first ever Carbon Calculator based on football travel

As the regional governing body for football, we believe we also have a responsibility to support our clubs in helping us/them achieve a low carbon, greener game, which is why we have implemented the Sustainability Pledge, a voluntary commitment by clubs to proactively find alternative, active or more sustainable ways to travel to and from football, reduce waste, consume less energy and water, offer alternative seasonal or vegan food, and engage in community based projects environmental projects.

Over 130 clubs from across the region of all sizes with almost 850 teams in total have signed up and compete monthly using the Pledgeball platform to make carbon saving pledges in support of their club. Whoever finishes top at the end of the month wins £500 towards the clubs operating costs like pitch hire, new kit, etc.

Linked to this is a pilot scheme with Birmingham City Council (BCC), as they look to engage the football community in their city-wide decarbonisation plans. Using our sustainability pledge and the digital platform clubs that use BCC owned or managed facilities for match days, they record their activities in return for a 25% reduction on their pitch hire costs. To some clubs, this could be worth up to £600 over the course of a season.

In addition to this, we recognised that finance would be a reason football clubs may not be able to make changes, which is why in September 2021 we launched the Green Innovation Fund, a ringfenced pot of our own capital to the value of £25,000 per season, for clubs to implement their own green schemes. So far, we have funded 150 projects over the last 2 seasons, investing nearly £43,000 back into the game locally, supporting the removal of an estimated 9,000 plastic bottles per week by switching to reusable, as well as funding the installation of water refill stations, solar panels, EV chargers and cycle racks at various sites across the region.

Furthermore, to reduce waste from within the game, we have partnered with the energy company Utilita and their Football Rebooted programme, which aims to keep 1 million pairs of football boots in use and out of landfills, using a network of 40 midlands-based grassroots football clubs to act as collection and distribution points.

The largest proportion of the grassroots football’s footprint is travel, with data showing over c.2.6 million football travel movements each season in our region alone. We also know from research that within Birmingham there are 30 venues with PM2.5 pollution levels that exceed WHO safety guidelines. To support reducing the reliance on cars, we have partnered with Liftshare, UK’s largest carsharing organisation, to launch the first Lift share scheme in grassroots football, offering all clubs, teams, officials, players and spectators a more sustainable alternative in how they travel to football. So far, almost 1,000 members have joined the scheme, which is supported by Birmingham City FC and Corporate Travel Management (CTM), with free matchday tickets to incentivise lift sharing.

So, what’s next for Save Today, Play Tomorrow?

We are keen to share our programme with the wider County FA network, and have created a shared value model that we are hoping to pilot with 4-6 others at the beginning of 2023. This model will allow them to access elements of the programme that will bring them the greatest initial impact, both from an environmental aspect but also financial with key investment agreed.

Following the launch of our charity of the year partnership with The Birmingham & Black County Wildlife Trust, we will now offer staff one “Back to Nature” volunteering day each year, coupled with one wellbeing day for more personal activity. For the club network, there will be opportunities for membership to the Wildlife Trust, education, club or team volunteering days, as well as fundraising opportunities at key events during the season

We are just about to go live with a pioneering Carbon Literacy in Grassroots Football Education course. We know from our own research that over 80% of clubs in the region want to become more sustainable, but with such a complex topic, knowing where to start or what to tackle first can eventually become a barrier. By completing this course, individuals gain a fundamental understanding of climate science, coupled with an awareness and confidence to implement more sustainable alternatives at their clubs and in their personal lives.

Over 50,000 learners are now carbon literate across business and industry sectors, but this is the first course of its kind within football. Everyone that completes the course is contributing to the 100,000 carbon saving actions already undertaken, which it is estimated to have saved 180,000 tonnes of co2e.

With our partners UtilityWorks, we have gone live with the BCFA Green Energy Product that offers football clubs of all sizes the opportunity to move to 100% renewable energy provided by a tier one supplier, at rates usually only accessible by the most energy intensive industries. By combining their consumption, clubs can take huge strides in their sustainability journey and open further opportunities to deploy carbon saving technology like solar arrays or EV chargers. This innovative energy product will create both a sustainability fund for clubs to access for support for other infrastructure, and also a community fund that will help alleviate the burden of cost on clubs for kit, equipment, or clubhouse renovations.

In the spring of 2023, we will be hosting our annual County Cup Finals. This season, using our friends over at Planet Mark, we will implement a Carbon Management Plan to record measures put in place to reduce the carbon footprint of these finals. Planet Mark will review and verify that PAS2060 standards have been met and gold standard or VCS offsets will be procured for the finals to be carbon neutral events, as we look at more long-term solutions to reduce the impacts.

The programme is evolving constantly as we find new ways for grassroots football to be a fundamental gamechanger in the fight against climate change.