The Irish FA has been working to improve its levels of sustainability through football. With the recent launch of the Sustainability Strategy, as well as having CSR and Sustainability as one of the seven key pillars in the Corporate Strategy – A Roadmap For Football (2022-2027), there is a strong emphasis on this topic.

To add further value to this ongoing work, on Tuesday 16th May, Football for Future arrived at the National Football Stadium to deliver a session around Climate Change and Football. We shared knowledge and recommendations on climate change and the role football has going forward.

The first session of the day was delivered to staff members across the Irish FA group, as well as some sports development officers from local councils. It had three core objectives:

To have a heightened awareness of climate change and its interrelationship with football.
To understand the role that football brands can play in tackling climate change.
To feel inspired and empowered to engage with sustainability in your personal and professional lives.

A total of 19 members of staff and sports development officers attended this session and the feedback was very positive from the event.

Football For All Manager, Keith Gibson commented “We were delighted to host FFF to engage with our Clubs and Staff on where we can further develop our sustainability programmes. The advice and case studies showed that we can make a difference at all levels of the game by simple changes. Our vision is to ‘impact every person in Northern Ireland’ through implementing these changes we can certainly do that.”

The second session of the day was delivered to clubs in the evening of Tuesday 16th May. 12 clubs from across Northern Ireland were represented at this session. With football social responsibility being a new part of UEFA club licensing this year, there is now a greater emphasis on clubs in the NIFL Premier League ensuring that they have robust sustainability strategies in place. There were representatives from across a range as NIFL clubs as well as a number of grassroots football clubs there on the evening.

Club and Community Development Officer, Kyle Robinson, noted that “it is vital for clubs that they aim to adopt sustainable practices going forward and having Football for Future share their expertise with local clubs has been invaluable. Football clubs have such an important role in local communities and have a great opportunity here to lead the way in showcasing best practice in this area as so many of them often do with other areas of work. There are plenty of ideas to take forward in adopting some simple sustainable practices through football.”