Green Football Weekend: Clubs and broadcasters team up for fan behaviour change push

Image: Green Football Weekend

The broadcasters, along with dozens of organisations across the footballing and environmental spheres, are hosting what they call a ‘Green Football Weekend’ – the first weekend of play after the most recent Transfer Deadline Day.

Fans are being encouraged to pledge to make one or more changes to their lifestyle this weekend through the Pledgeball platform, such as going meat-free for meals or swapping car journeys for walking and cycling. In doing so, they can score three virtual ‘green goals’ that get added to the tally for their team.

Fans can then score three further ‘green goals’ by proving that they have completed their pledges, through the Planet League platform.

A dedicated website has been set up to track pledges and to outline which teams are ‘winning’. At the time of writing, the top five teams are Manchester United, Leicester City, Leeds United, Chelsea and Port Vale. In this way, the campaign is gamified. The winning team will be awarded a dedicated Green Football Cup.

Fans are being encouraged to take part, additionally, with prizes including televisions, signed shirts, tickets and Football Manager game passes.

An array of partners are supporting BT Sport, Sky and the 80 participating clubs, including the English Football League, the Women’s Super League, Common Goal, Football for Future, Let’s Go Zero, the National Trust, the Rainforest Trust, RSPB, Sport Positive, UN Live and We Play Green.

Green Football Weekend follows on from the Sky Sports #GoZero campaign, which hosted a specific activation last summer that saw fans taking more than 1.7 million actions to reduce their environmental impact both at major events and from their own homes. Events covered by this campaign included he Hundred, Formula 1 British Grand Prix, The 150th Open, and Super League’s Magic Weekend.

Before this, Sky hosted what it claims was the world’s first net-zero carbon elite-level football match. The #GameZero match between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur took place in September 2021, ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Related feature: Can football deliver a class act on climate action?

Learn about engaging the general public with climate issues at edie 23

Taking place in London on 1-2 March 2023, edie’s biggest annual event has undergone a major revamp to become edie 23, with a new name, new venue, multiple new content streams and myriad innovative event features and networking opportunities.

edie 23 will take place at the state-of-the-art 133 Houndsditch conference venue in central London. Held over two floors, the event will offer up two full days of keynotes, panels, best-practice case studies and audience-led discussions across three themed stages – Strategy, Net-Zero and Action.

Click here for full information and to book your ticket.

Hubbub’s chief executive Alex Robinson will be speaking on Day 2 of edie 23 ( March 2) during a fireside chat on ‘engaging the general public on the road to net-zero’. This session will be of interest to readers who enjoyed this article. It also includes the British Retail Consortium’s project manager for climate action, Niki Hunt.