Here are two good pub quiz sports questions.
· Which professional football team is the most environmentally conscious in the UK (and quite possibly the world)?
· And which team in the four English top divisions represents the smallest settlement (town, city or similar)?
Answers soon, and don’t worry, this isn’t an article aimed only at football fans. But last weekend was mixed for my favourite teams. Sunderland, where I was born and bred, failed to escape from League One, again. They lost in the promotion playoffs to Lincoln – but I do have a soft spot for Lincoln, which partly soothed my pain, as that is where the firm for whom I am a non-exec is situated. Two very good friends support Brentford and West Ham, both of whom had good results. But I also have a fondness for Forest Green Rovers, who didn’t make it through the League 2 playoffs.
And Forest Green Rovers is the answer to both of those initial questions. Forest Green is actually a “suburb” of Nailsworth in Gloucestershire, not exactly a teeming metropolis itself, having a population of just 5,794. It is a beautifully situated town, an ancient settlement where two rivers meet, that became a successful centre for milling and brewing. It now has an arty but unpretentious vibe and great walks up the steep paths to Minchinhampton Common, where free-range cows graze on the golf course. Lots of decent pubs too… Stroud, the town that gave birth to Extinction Rebellion, is just a few miles up the road, so the area has become something of a centre for the environmental movement.
Go back 20 years, and Forest Green Rovers were playing in the Southern League (southern division). But following investment from entrepreneur Dale Vince, the founder of green energy firm Ecotricity, the club was promoted into the Conference, then League 2 in 2017. It is now threatening to move up further, but just as significant is how Vince has made the club a beacon for sustainability, including its supply chain activities and decisions.
Vince is an interesting character, the son of a lorry driver who left school at 15 and spent years as a traveller, living in an old ambulance, a pickup truck, driving a 30-year-old fire engine to Spain, riding motorbikes, moving from one site to another, as he describes in his book Manifesto. As well as Ecotricity, he has been involved in a host of other sustainability-related initiatives, and his changes at Forest Green, such as making it the first vegan professional football club in 2015, have gained a lot of publicity. No meat pies on sale at the ground, but lenty ofvegan food, and beer from the local Stroud Brewery. Players are also encouraged to avoid red meat.
Then in 2018 Forest Green Rovers became the first football club in the world to be certified carbon neutral under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) initiative Climate Neutral Now. The pitch is “entirely organic” with cow manure used to fertilise the grass, there are solar panels on the stand roof, and Vince has submitted plans to build a new stadium almost entirely of wood, which will “have the lowest carbon footprint of any stadium in the world”.
Vince was interviewed before the televised game at the weekend, and he talked about the team’s new strips. Shirts were being made from 50% bamboo, but they have implemented an even more radical idea. According to the BBC, the latest material is a combination of coffee grounds and recyclable plastic bottles, made by a special process, so everything in them is recycled or organic.
Vince said, "We think it's lighter than the bamboo, and apparently it breathes better, which is a surprise to me, but there is a performance benefit from minimising plastic because you sweat more and get hotter. But you need that blend because the shirts also need to be super tough."
In the interview, he also said that next season’s new strip will be released firstly in virtual form, available to buy for fans to “wear” online! That concept of virtual fashion was exactly what Jade McSorley was talking about here in terms of her work with the Fashion Innovation Agency at the London College of Fashion, UAL. The Forest Green strips will then be available in solid form too of course, but again this is Vince innovating and looking at creative ideas around sustainability.
Anyway, it is an inspirational story, and I hope to get to the ground to see Forest Green play at some point. Will other teams follow their lead? Maybe we won’t see Liverpool or Chelsea going to quite the extent that Vince has implemented. But having leaders like him and the club will we hope inspire others to look at how they can at least move in the right direction in terms of the environment, purpose and sustainability.