Six clubs across all three divisions of the EFL have made pledged to make a commitment to travelling to clubs in a more environmentally friendly way after many clubs across all four divisions have been criticised for flighting to matches.
Gloucestershire-based clubs Bristol City, Bristol Rovers and Forest Green Rovers are joined by another western club, Swindon Town, as well as Mansfield Town and Millwall in signing up to the ‘Sustainable Travel Charter’ which has been launched in order for clubs to have a positive environmental impact.
Championship side Millwall as a club have had a ‘no flight policy’ but an investigation conducted by the BBC in early 2023 showed that there was evidence of 81 individual short-haul domestic flights made by Premier League teams to and from 100 matches over a two-month period. Premier League side Nottingham Forest were criticised for taking a 20-minute flight to Blackpool for an FA Cup third round tie in January.
Wrexham, owned by Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, gained automatic promotion back to the EFL last season but took 16 domestic flights last season as they finished at the top-of-the-table in the National League.
Forest Green Rovers have been consistently in the news for their green initiatives with owner Dale Vince a green energy industrialist. The 62-year-old, who has an OBE, is the owner of Ecotricity and, in 2018, led Forest Green to becoming the first football club in world football to be certified carbon neutral under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The club has been described by the sport’s world governing body, FIFA, as the ‘greenest team in the world’.
Mark Fairbrother, Chief Financial Officer of the aforementioned Millwall, has said that the club’s operations have already made ‘strong progress’ in reducing waste, ‘as well as other eco-friendly initiatives.’
