Plymouth Argyle players still did not go home after their equality of the FA Cup against Manchester City on Saturday. The club’s commitment to make travel choices concerned with the environment means that they move to play Hull on Tuesday evening.
Travel -related trips generate 56.7 tonnes of CO2e per season for Premier League clubs only, with 85% of the emissions awarded to theft. Plymouth is one of the 14 clubs that have signed up for a new charter that engages in the greener behavior.
“He feels big,” said Katie Cross, CEO of Slipperytell Sky Sports. “We launched it for the first time in 2023 with only six clubs, and the goal was to reduce the number of interior fights that occur in English football. We needed it to be a wave of land.”
Cross adds: “Having 14 clubs now, including a large number of championship clubs, very happy to sign the charter, is a real reflection on the importance that has been given to sustainability, and in particular people from these clubs.
“These are individuals who have personal appetite to really stimulate sustainability. Football business is very difficult. It does not favor sustainability, that does not really allow it. So, if you want to drive it, it must generally come from a personal place.”
Plymouth, under President Simon Hallett, was always likely to be at the forefront of this initiative. Cross describes them as “an incredible club in terms of culture” with an income model which is very different from the standard – not all decisions are commercial.
“It has been a bit of a trip for us in recent years,” said Christian Kent Sky Sports. Kent is the head of the Plymouth conference and events. “I am very proud of the progress we have made, we have almost halved our programs in two years.”
He explains: “We do things like solar panels and harvesting rainwater, but there are then small touches. We have become digital with tickets. We use electric vehicles. Small steps can make a big change. We work towards Net Zero.
“If you look at a sport like Formula 1, which are the biggest polluters in terms of sports worlds, they have made a big net zero declaration by 2030. So, if a sport like Formula 1 can do, there is no reason why football can not be the same.”
Why does Plymouth take the lead on this? “Obviously, playing green is really important for us,” jokes Kent. But it is a question of creating a culture, which comes from the summit of the organization, from Hallett, of the director general Andrew Parkinson and of the rest.
“You need it to the board of directors to each member of the staff. The whole team must meet. Everyone here plays their role and lives these values. We want to be sustainable not only financially but in an environmental sense.”
Joe Edwards, captain of Plymouth, is one of those who adopted the club’s values. Now 34 years old, he joined Six years ago from Walsall. He knows that the location makes the trip a hot topic. “It’s a challenge but that’s what makes him so special,” he says.
“It is a unique club and it is fantastic to get involved in something like that. It comes from the top, but it feeds us as players. We know that we are affecting the carbon footprint, so we want to assume responsibility for this and play our role as well.”
Please use Chrome Browser for a more accessible video player
Plymouth Argyle Boss Miron Music on the way football “ liberates it ” as a Bosnian refugee
Logistics means that Plymouth takes flights, but they limit the number and try to be creative. “We don’t need to fly for every game,” said Edwards. Hence the decision to stay north between the aircraft, a serious commitment from the club given the hotel’s expense.
How do players think of being absent for so long? “It varies. Those with children sometimes miss them. Sometimes it’s pretty pleasant to have a break!” Edwards has twin boys, five, and that only sharpened the mind that is concerned with the environment.
“They are taught at school, which is great, I think. They come back with small things. When you have a young family growing, you also want to have the safest and cleanest environment for them. It really highlighted the problem for me.
“When you connect here, you sign by knowing the location. You register for it. I often appreciate the logistics of going to places because you have a lot of time together as a team. But I can imagine that it is completely different in a Premier League club.”
Please use Chrome Browser for a more accessible video player
Highlights of the Sky Bet league match between Luton Town and Plymouth Argyle
Cross understands that better than most. She hesitates to call individual clubs but heard the stories of theft for incredibly short trips. “This is an absolutely weird situation and many fans call it because it is such a visible thing,” she explains.
“You could say that it is a small percentage of their global emissions. But the normalization of this behavior is not measurable. It reinforces this feeling of paralysis and the type of despair that people have because they believe that action cannot be taken.
“We know by research that more than 80% of fans are concerned about climate change. They want their clubs to take more action, but they are silent and they are therefore not aware of the concern of others. They fear that they are laughed for raised it.
“Players would intensify a huge impact. There are reluctance on their part because, of course, they are part of this system, not necessarily by the choice. Many of them do not want to fly, but they fear that they are called to be hypocrites.
“William Troost-Ekong, the captain of Nigeria, is very frank on the fact that he has no choice. He is in this system with a high carbon intensity, but he does what he can and that he is the same for all of us. It does not mean that you abandon and do nothing.
“We don’t need everyone to be perfect. What we really don’t need is that a few are perfect, and the others too anxious to be perfect, they do not take any measure. It’s about doing everything we really can in the role we see.
“Whether it is a question of making lasting choices in our own behavior, talking to family and friends, talking to our club, talking to our businesses, voting with our feet in terms of consumerism, people do not realize how much we can have an impact.”
Hope is that this charter can inspire a significant change. Cross and Gredgeball have “very little decline” clubs in the football league, but there is an appreciation that the riches of the Premier League cause different pressures.
Cutting flights would mean giving their rivals a competitive advantage. But if the football league clubs were to commit, it could bring a change in thought of thought. “We need this peer pressure, right?” Supporters would start to demand better.
“Very quickly, it could become the new standard. Think of what happened with the ban on smoking. It is absolutely weird now to think that we sit in an advertisement and that people smoke around us. But that’s what was going on. We accept the very, very easily.
“And here, the standard is that, essentially, the clubs choose to damage the air that we breathe quite considerably when it is absolutely not necessary to do it.” With clubs like Plymouth opening the way, the ambition is to show that there is another way.
