A Sustainable Future for Football: Implementing Sustainability Strategies to Drive Progress
Football holds an extremely powerful platform as one of the world's most popular sports. With an estimated five billion fans worldwide, it’s influence is arguably unrivalled by any other sport. As a result of this position, football clubs and governing bodies have both the potential and the responsibility to establish the sport as a leader that can drive progress towards a more sustainable future both in sport and in wider society.
With sustainability attracting attention within football, ambition towards a sustainable future must be translated into tangible actions which tackle these challenges head-on. Robust sustainability strategies which effectively embed ESG targets are essential, and we have seen the development of such strategies in the sport over the last few years. UEFA’s sustainability strategy for 2030 aims to ensure that football’s stakeholders are working towards a common goal for sustainable development within the sport by providing ‘Strength through Unity’. The launch of this strategy addresses a long-standing need for a unified approach to inspire, activate, and accelerate change in tackling the complex sustainability challenges which the sport faces. The strategy establishes a framework of guidelines for UEFA’s stakeholders focusing on 11 key areas of social and environmental sustainability. UEFA announced that these guidelines and tools would be piloted in collaboration with Italian football club AS Roma.
Progress towards the goals outlined in UEFA’s strategy are not just important but are now a compulsory requirement for their stakeholders. As of June 2022, UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Sustainability Regulations dictates that the implementation of a social responsibility strategy in line with the 2030 strategy is a compulsory requirement for football clubs. Additionally, each club is required to appoint a Football Social Responsibility Officer to oversee the implementation of the relevant sustainability goals.
The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) launched their sustainability strategy in the summer of 2023 which outlines 60 clear objectives that Italian football aims to meet by 2030. Drawing on the targets for the UN 2030 agenda in addition to the goals set out in the UEFA 2030 strategy, the FIGC plan also focuses on UEFA’s 11 key areas of sustainability. The FIGC are the first Italian sporting federation to adopt a strategic document of this nature, offering an example of how football can establish itself as a leader for sustainability and how other sports can follow suit.
Beyond the mandated change to ensure football stakeholders are prioritising sustainability, shifting preferences have seen fans demand more action from the sport. A report published by YouGov in 2022 which looked at the attitudes of fans towards issues of social responsibility found that more than half of sport fans considered themselves to be environmentalists. Additionally, 62% of sports fans looked favourably upon brands and companies which promoted ethical messages. This correlates with attitudes displayed by European football fans with around one third of fans surveyed wanting environmental issues to be taken more seriously in football.
It is clear that sustainability must be a key consideration in the future of football. With both governing bodies and fans viewing sustainability as a topic that must be addressed, the sport must ensure it lives up to these expectations and contributes to a more sustainable future not only on the pitch, but industry-wide and in wider society. Through the implementation of robust sustainability strategies, football has the potential to establish itself as a leader, driving progress for sustainability and providing a blueprint for other sports to build on.