Rochdale Football Club and Community Trust are delighted to be supporting Green Football Weekend.
Taking place between 3rd-6th February, Green Football Weekend will see millions of fans come together to tackle climate change.
More than 80 of the UK’s professional clubs will participate in the Green Football Cup, which begins on Tuesday 17th January.
You can help Dale in the competition, scoring green goals by taking actions such as walking and cycling more, eating a veggie meal, or even reducing your shower time.
As well as helping your club up the table, there will be money-can’t-buy prizes on offer, including unique matchday experiences and behind-the-scenes days at Sky Sports and BT Sport.
Click HERE for full details and to start playing.
As a club and Community Trust, we are running a competition on the weekend itself.
On Saturday 4th February, when Dale travel to Salford City, we would like supporters to travel to the match as sustainably as possible! That could mean car-sharing, booking on the club’s official supporters’ coach, or taking public transport.
The winner will receive the captain's armband from the game, which will be a special Green Football Weekend design!
Get involved on social media using the hashtag #EcoDale.
At our home match against Carlisle United on Saturday, we held a number of sustainability activities on our five-a-side pitch.
COMMUNITY TRUST’S SCHOOL DELIVERY ON SUSTAINABLE THEMES
The Community Trust deliver social action projects to pupils across the Borough, as part of the Primary Stars programme.
The aim is enable and empower pupils to address an identified social need within their school or local community.
Social action is defined as young people taking practical action in service of others to create positive social change that is of benefit to the wider community, as well as to the young people themselves.
One example is the Holy Family Recycling project, where pupils contacted the council for support and guidance.
They raised awareness around plastic waste and recycling, finding out that plastic lids cannot be recycled.
As a result, they made a bottle top art project which now takes pride of place on the One Stop Bus.
ACTIONS TAKEN TO BECOME MORE SUSTAINABLE AS A CLUB
As an EFL Green Club member, we have recently taken a number of actions to become more sustainable. Take a look at the full list below:
- LED floodlights – replacing the deteriorating old floodlights with new LED lights that are more effective and efficient.
- EV charging scheme – work has begun on installing six EV commercial charging points in the club car park for staff, player, public and fan use – to encourage ownership and use of Electric Vehicles in the area and potentially on a matchday.
- LED lights and movement sensors – most of the lights across the stadium are now LED and the remainder will be converted when bulbs need to be replaced. Furthermore, we have added movement sensors in certain areas to reduce the time lights are on.
- Water reduction – sensors have been installed in a number of the toilets around to ground to reduce water used for flushing. Toilets had been on a timer system flushing every 20 mins, 24 hours a day.
- Switch it off and turn it down – active management of boilers and radiators to switch them down or off. Active campaign to switch off lights, chillers, ice machines, heaters when not required and at the end of the day.
- Recycle / waste management – we’ve moved from waste skips sent to landfill to a recycle service to separate and recycle waste.
- Travel – We take fewer cars to away games by the Directors and Media Team increasing our car sharing.
- Sharing info and initiatives with our sponsor Crown Oil – meeting with Crown Oil sustainability leaders to share ideas to promote net zero.
- Meter Readings – All meters are read, plotted and analysed weekly to look for issues, and gauge the impact of our initiatives.
- Green utilities – as part of our switching strategy we’ve increased the percentage of Green power.
- Green procurement – as we procure goods and services, sustainability is considered as part of the selection, including sourcing closer to home.
- Sustainability Policy – We have written a policy, agreed it with the Board and published on Club and Community Trust websites.
- Zero Hero Champions – Whilst everyone at the club is encouraged to contribute, we have two Zero Hero Champions – Graham Hicks from the Community Trust and John Sparrow from the Club, working with Club Director and Community Trust Trustee Tony Pockney as the team accountable for Sustainability. Both Zero Hero’s attended seven weeks of Net Zero training provided by the Growth Hub.