Everton's Commitment To Reducing Carbon Footprint

With the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow coming to a close, we are proud to spotlight the initiatives in place at Everton Football Club to help ensure we are more sustainable in our operations.

The over-arching ‘Everton for Change’ campaign aims to raise environmental awareness and explore new ways to make a positive impact on the planet.

Everton for Change - a campaign launched in 2019 - has seen the Club and Everton in the Community renew their commitment to reducing their carbon footprint, while introducing a number of new initiatives across all sites.

One of the Club’s first ‘Everton for Change’ initiatives, in partnership with official catering partner Sodexo, saw the introduction of reusable cups in place of single-use plastic cups at Goodison Park, along with minimising packaging. Over the course of an average season, Everton estimates it will prevent approximately 75,000 single-use plastic pint cups from polluting the environment.

At Goodison, Sodexo has also changed all plastic cutlery to wood, swapped plastic straws to paper, and will soon use smart technology to reduced food waste. This data-led approach will allow for operational and behavioural changes to help cut food waste by up to 50 percent and avoid food rotting and releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Across the Club, drinking water machines have been installed, to encourage all staff to utilise their own refillable water bottles onsite and eliminate the use of single-use plastic cups. The Club use Aquaid water coolers, who also supply and build drinkable water projects in Africa.

These actions will help to significantly reduce the use of single-use plastics at Goodison Park, USM Finch Farm, the Club’s Royal Liver Building Head Office and the Everton in the Community sites.

There have been further efforts made over recent months to improve the sustainability of operations, including initiatives such as the installation of separation at source recycling bins, continued installation of LED lighting across the estate, centrally controlled heating systems and swapping pitch maintenance materials and equipment fuel for more environmentally friendly options.

In addition, work is under way with a paper manufacturer, with the aim of returning all paper towels, napkins, serviettes, etc, back to them to be manufactured into toilet paper.

In 2020, Everton announced that all playing and retail kits from the Clubs technical partner hummel would adopt the company’s innovative ZEROH2O technology. This groundbreaking technology ensures there is zero water consumption and zero wastewater during the dying process and a 50 percent reduction in energy consumption overall.

This was built upon in May 2021, when Everton and hummel announced their three kits for the 2021/22 season would benefit from ECO8 technology – a process that sees each kit manufactured from polyester produced from up to eight recycled plastic bottles. Each kit also features an ECO8 logo, raising awareness of the environmentally friendly production method.

During this time, Everton has continued to work with retail partner Fanatics to ensure 100 percent recyclable and reusable carrier bags are used in all of the Club’s shops - and that old kits and uniforms are collected and recycled or, where possible, gifted to local and international charities.

Everton for Change has allowed Everton to introduce and expand on a number of initiatives across all its sites, with the aim of embedding environmental awareness into the club’s day-to-day operations. These have included:

- Reducing energy consumption with the use of LED lighting, installation of lighting motion sensors and BMS systems.
- Introducing waste recycling points across Club sites for plastic, cardboard, wood, glass and paper, with food waste collection recycled for green energy using a process called anaerobic digestion.
- Organic waste such as grass clippings and other plant material being recycled into natural compost.
- Use of organic fertilisers on all pitches.
- Encouraging staff to use digital communications channels to reduce travel.
- Wider promotion of the Club’s Bike-2-Work scheme for staff and how cycling can minimise the use of fossil fuels and provide a pollution-free mode of transport.
- Swapping plastic cutlery for wooden cutlery and plastic straws for paper straws, eliminating individual plastic packet condiments and reducing packaging for catering produce on matchdays.
- Introducing battery recycling points at all sites and a recycling scheme for printer ink cartridges.

The Everton for Change branding – and the tagline ‘protecting our planet’ – has also been visible at Goodison Park on LED perimeter boards, the big screens and across other parts of the stadium at all matchdays to raise wider awareness of the campaign.

Going forwards, the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock presents an opportunity for the Club to embed its sustainability initiatives from day one and has been a major part of the design process for the 52,888-capacity venue, which will sit on the banks of the River Mersey.

The aim is to make it the most sustainable stadium in the Premier League.

Along with construction partner Laing O’Rourke, Everton for Change has allowed Everton to introduce and expand on a number of initiatives across all of its sites, with the aim of embedding environmental awareness into the Club’s day-to-day operations.

Throughout the public consultation, held prior to the submission of a planning application in 2019, the club highlighted its intention to harness the unique features of the waterside location to create an environmentally friendly and sustainable stadium, efficient in design, construction and operation.

Measures that featured in the sustainability statement submitted as part of the planning application included generating electricity from solar panels, harvesting rainwater for use in toilets and the provision of charging facilities for electric and hybrid vehicles.

Prior to the construction commencing in July, Everton carried out extensive ecological surveys, while marine life has safely been removed and relocated from the dock on which the stadium will be built. New habitats for birds such as cormorants were also installed in a neighbouring dock before the first build phase began.

A commitment to monitor noise pollution and air quality during and after construction is further evidence of Everton’s environmental promise, while materials from the demolition of derelict warehouse buildings on the site will be reused elsewhere towards the development or removed and recycled in other ways.