The focus of the survey was on issues that have the biggest impact on the environmental footprint of a professional football club. First and foremost, this includes mobility, energy, catering, merchandising and waste. myclimate also asked whether the teams regularly calculated their carbon footprint, something which is essential for sustainably reducing a club’s emissions over the long term.
Taking stock of the situation, myclimate has observed that professional football has been addressing the topic of climate protection for some time now. All clubs are aware that they have an ecological responsibility and have put a range of relevant measures in place as a result. For example, nine out of the fifteen clubs have stated that they calculate their carbon footprint. From the results of this, those responsible at the football club can gain clear insight into how many tonnes of CO₂ are generated by mobility, energy, catering.
However, it is clear that the Bundesliga clubs are yet to exploit their potential for improvement. «The Bundesliga clubs enjoy enormous public interest. Consequently, they have a particularly large amount of responsibility.» explains Stefan Baumeister, Managing Director of myclimate Germany. «Clubs can use their celebrity status to be a social and economic role model in many areas, including climate protection. The German federal governments target of becoming fully climate neutral by 2050 concerns us all.»
With this in mind, myclimate advises all Bundesliga clubs to systematically address the issue of climate protection and calculate their carbon footprint on an annual basis. myclimate is keen to periodically ask clubs about the progress they have made in the individual categories over the coming years.