We are delighted to announce that Sutton United has become just the third club to be accredited under the EFL's Green Clubs scheme.
The EFL launched its new Green Code scheme in 2022 as part of the drive to make football more sustainable and clubs were invited to sign up to the scheme and then to complete a survey. The survey covered twenty five criteria across eight categories from carbon to biodiversity and our initial score came in at 46 points, with a score of 76 needed to achieve accreditation.
Over the next 18 months we have introduced a number of enhancements to the way in which we approach environmental impacts and wider sustainability, including:-
- Introducing an Environmental Management System aligned to ISO:140001
- Monthly energy reports
- Annual sustainability (CSR) report, with full disclosure of Carbon emissions for Scopes 1,2 and 3
- Vape recycling
- Upgrading to LED lighting
- Becoming a hub for Human Forest e-bikes
- Switching to hybrid and fully electric company vehicles
- An energy awareness campaign
- Sustainability newsletters
Having reached a level where we believed that our score had reached the required standard, we repeated the survey and submitted for external audit in April, and have just received the great news that we have passed with a score of 76. This makes us the third accredited club in the EFL after Forest Green Rovers and Bristol City.
Our Sustainability Lead, Dave Farebrother, commented: "We are delighted that our progress has been recognised by the award of this accreditation. But we do not intend to rest on our laurels and have work to do in particular to meet the carbon reduction targets we have set. One of the areas I am most pleased about is in being instrumental in seeing the EFL's green group adopt the training methods of www.climatefresk.org, which we introduced at Sutton a year ago. I'd also like to thank Liam McSherry for volunteering to help with improving our sustainability performance.''
