Arsenal Football Club join UN Sports for Climate Action Framework

Arsenal Football Club are the first English Premier League club to join the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework.

Arsenal believe that by joining this action framework they can inspire fans from across the globe to be more sustainable.

The Club’s Operations director, Hywel Sloman, has reported that Arsenal have already implemented a number of environmentally friendly practices across the club and that they will continue to use the power and reach of Arsenal to inspire their global communities encouraging each other towards a more sustainable future.

In signing up to the framework the club and their staff are committed to five key principles which aim to reduce their climate impact as part of the attempts to limit global warming:

• Undertake systematic efforts to promote greater environmental responsibility
• Reduce overall climate impact
• Educate on climate action
• Promote sustainable and responsible consumption
• Advocate for climate action through communication.

Arsenal are proving to be at the forefront of sports clubs in their drive to promote sustainability and responsible consumption by finishing joint-top in a 2019 BBC Sport Premier League sustainability table - produced in partnership with UN-backed Sport Positive Summit.

Lindita Xhaferi-Salihu, Sports for Climate Action Lead at UN Climate Change has commented that as football inspires so many people across the world there is a remarkable potential for the game to become greener and more climate-resilient.

Arsenal are the third British club to sign up to the framework joining League Two side Forest Green Rovers and Hibernian in the Scottish Premiership.

These are just some of the environmentally friendly initiatives undertaken by Arsenal so far:

• The UK's first football club to install large-scale battery energy storage in 2018. The battery storage system can power the 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium for an entire match.
• Planted more than 29,000 trees at the club's training centre in London Colney since 1999, to create the Colney Wood.
• Installed a water recycling system at the training centre to reuse water that comes from the pitch - in the last year, this has seen more than 4.5 million litres of water recycled.
• Became the first Premier League club to switch to 100% green electricity.
• Saves 20,000 single-use plastic cups per game when Emirates Stadium is full through a reusable cup scheme.
• Has water dispensers across all sites - saving 150,000 single-use plastic water bottles per year.
• Reduced energy by installing automated LED lighting at all club sites.