Football’s role in promoting environmental sustainability
One of the most important issues affecting the world today is climate change, and the popularity football has around the planet means that the stakeholders in this sport, whether players, clubs or competitions, have a responsibility to educate and to raise awareness of the latest sustainability challenges and solutions.
This is the reason for the latest LALIGA EXTRA TIME webinar, titled “Environmental Sustainability in Football”. It featured the thoughts of David Baixauli, Sustainability Director at LALIGA, of David Espinar, Advisor and Presidential Director at Real Valladolid, and of Gerald van den Belt, Director at Dutch club SC Cambuur.
As said in the webinar, LALIGA has achieved a lot over the past few years through the competition’s strategic environmental plan. One pillar of this plan has been for the competition and its clubs to become more sustainable, and this has been achieved thanks to a focus on areas such as energy efficiency, waste and water management, and mobility plans.
LALIGA’s role in climate change goes well over this. As Baixauli explained, the football industry’s footprint in this sense isn’t particularly large. However, football can use its immense popularity to contribute to the fight against climate change in a unique way.
“We advise clubs that they identify awareness-raising mechanisms which support environmental causes in their own communities.”
David Baixauli, Sustainability Director at LALIGA
David Espinar, Advisor and Presidential Director at Real Valladolid, also participated in the webinar and was able to offer the view of one of the LALIGA clubs following the plan.
Espinar explained that Real Valladolid have three pillars of sustainability: action, raising awareness and reporting. Breaking the action side down further, some examples include the incorporation of zero-emission cars, the use of renewable energy or train travel rather than coach travel.
Read more about the webinar here.
