SD Europe’s sustainability action plan report, titled Clean Sheet: SD Europe’s Path To Sustainability, has reached its final stages.
The aim of the report, announced back in May 2021, was to build an environmental action plan – for SD Europe and its members.
The report has been developed bottom-up together with SD Europe’s members and network, capturing the values, ideas, and actions of the involved national supporters organisations, local supporters groups and football clubs with the goal of giving a clear direction to future actions. Ultimately, this report is to catalyse action as a network towards the climate crisis.
The clear message is supporters want to help tackle the climate crisis in their communities and collectively on an international level.
Key Findings & Identified Actions:
Fans want to get involved but lack frameworks – football needs and can develop its own solutions and work with stakeholders to achieve this.
The number of initiatives are increasing but still not enough.
Communication issues exist – both information and data.
There is lack of data about sport’s ecological footprint and tailor-made actions by the sport industry.
There is a big gap between football’s environmental footprint and the current actions that are being taken.
No one stakeholder can act alone to create a lasting impact. Stakeholders need to be cooperative and not operate in silos.
Resources are needed for SD Europe to support its members in this area and for the members themselves to implement actions. And Specific To SD Europe
SD Europe is in a “Values in Action” situation – its sustainability values are close to its planned actions in that field.
Raising awareness – Emphasising the connections between environmental sustainability activities and the climate crisis.
Transferring knowledge – One of the major issues today is the lack of relevant knowledge transformation across all levels, grassroot levels, experts, and policy makers.
Environmental initiative – The activities that can be carried out to address impact on the environment.
Commenting on the progress, SD Europe CEO Antonia Hagemann said “the UN’s recent IPCC report has laid grave warnings about the future, presently already over the last month we have seen devastating flash floods and wildfires across Europe.
Many will have seen reports of football supporters going to assist and tackle these environmental disasters in Germany, Greece and other countries.
It’s clear many organised supporters are aware of the peril we all face from the climate crisis and are prepared to help which has also been identified through the research in the ‘Clean Sheet’ report.
Through our initial action plan, we have been able to map an understanding of our membership on the climate crisis.
Together with our network, this report is an initial step to understanding what climate change means to our network, from national fans organisations to community clubs and more, and how they get involved and how they see their role in this environmental crisis.”
The report signals the SD Europe network’s intent to address its share in tackling climate change and that tangible steps can be taken to achieve this.
The process and production of the report has been conducted by Shay Golub, an SD Europe Advisory Board member and Chair of the national supporters organisation in Israel (Israfans), who has over 20 years of experience as a professional in the area of sustainability.
Following this update, the report will remain an internal document whilst it is shared with SD Europe member national supporters organisations, supporters groups and football clubs for further consultation with the intention to publish it further on in the process.
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