Plymouth Argyle among 14 clubs to sign a sustainable travel charter: Captain Joe Edwards at a club that does it differently

Plymouth Argyle’s players have not yet returned home after FA Cup against Manchester City on Saturday on Saturday. The club dedication to make environmentally conscious choice of travel on Tuesday night to travel to play Hull.

Football trips create 56.7 tons of CO2E per season for the Premier League clubs alone, and 85 percent of the shows attributed to flying. Plymouth is one of the 14 clubs who have signed up for a new charter that has committed herself to greener behavior.

“She feels big,” Katie Cross, Executive Director Pledgespeaks Sky Sports. “First we started it in 2023 with only six clubs, and the goal was to reduce the number of domestic fights that happen in English football. We should have been fundamental.”

Cross adds: “Now have 14 clubs, including a large number of championship clubs, very happy to sign a charter, is a true reflection of importance that is given sustainability, and especially from individuals within these clubs.

“These are individuals who have a personal appetite to truly encourage sustainability. The football job is very difficult. It does not give a priority of sustainability, it doesn’t really allow it. So if you want to drive it, it mostly has to come from a personal place.”

Plymouth, under the chairman Simon Hallett, was always at the helm of this initiative. Cross describes them as a “incredible club in terms of culture” with a revenue model that is very different from the norm – not every decision is commercial.

“It was a little trip to us in the last few years,” says Christian Kent Sky Sports. Kent is Plymouth -O’s head of conferences and events. “I am very proud of the progress we have achieved. We pretty much halved our shows in two years.”

He explains, “We do things like solar panels and rainwater harvests, but there are small touches. We are digital digital with tickets. We use electric vehicles. Small steps can make a big change. We work on the net.

“If you look at sports like Formula One, who are the biggest pollutants in the sports world, they made a big statement on being a net zero by 2030. So if sports like Formula 1 can do this, there is no reason why football cannot be the same.”

Why Plymouth takes the lead in this? “Obviously, playing in green is really important to us,” Kent jokes. But it is about the creation of a culture, one that comes from the top of the organization, from Halletta, executive director Andrew Parkinson and others.

“You need a committee to every member of the staff. The whole team has to gather. Everyone here playing their role and living these values. We want to be sustainable not only financially, but in terms of the environment.”

Joe Edwards, Captain Plymouth, is one of those who accepted the club’s values. Now 34 years, he joined six years ago from Walsall. He knows that the location makes a trip to a hot topic. “It’s a challenge, but that’s what makes it so special,” he claims.

“This is a unique club and it is fantastic to be involved in something like this. It comes from the top, but it comes to us as players. We know we affect the carbon print, so we want to take responsibility for it and play our role.”

Logistics means that Plymouth flies, but they limit the number and try to be creative. “We don’t need to fly for every game,” Edwards says. Hence the decision to stay in the north between the node, the serious obligation of the club with respect to the hotel costs.

How do players feel so long? “It varies. Those with children sometimes miss them. Sometimes it’s a pretty nice break!” Edwards has a twin boys, five, and that just tightened the mind when it comes to the environment.

“I think they are taught at school, which is great, I think. They come back with the little things. When you have a young family that grows up, you want to have the safest and purest environment for them. It really emphasized the problem for me.

“When you sign here, you sign knowledge of the location. You apply for it. I often enjoyed the logistics of coming to places because you have a lot of time together as a team. But I can imagine that it is completely different at the Premier League club.”

Cross understands that better than most. Reluctant to call individual clubs, but she heard stories about flights for astonishingly short trips. “It’s an absolutely bizarre situation and many fans call it because it’s such a visible thing,” she explains.

“You could say that this is a small percentage of their total emissions. But the normalization of this behavior is not measurable. It strengthens this sense of paralysis and the type of despair that people have because they believe that this action cannot be done.

“We know from a study that over 80 percent of fans are worried about climate change. They want their clubs to take more actions, but they are silent and are not aware of someone else’s worries. They are worried that they will laugh at being lifted.

“The players who amplified would have a huge impact. There is restraint from them, because of course, they are part of that system, not necessarily through the choice. Many of them do not want to fly, but they are worried that they will be called for hypocrites.

“William Troist-Ekong, Captain of Nigeria, is very honest because of the fact that there is no choice. He is within this carbon intense system, but he does what he can, and the same should be true for all of us. That doesn’t mean you just don’t give up and just don’t do anything.

“We don’t all need us to be perfect. What we really don’t need is that they are a few perfect, and the rest are also worried about being perfect, they do not take any action. This is that we all do what we can do in any role we see it.

“Whether it makes sustainable decisions in our own behavior, we talk to family and friends about it, talk to our club, talk to our companies, voting with our feet when it comes to consumerism, people don’t understand how much influence we can have.”

Hope is that this charter can encourage meaningful changes. Cross and Pledgeball have experienced “very little return” from clubs in the football league, but there is gratitude that the wealth of the Premier League bring with them different pressure.

Removing flights would mean to give a competitive advantage to its rivals. But if the football league clubs should commit, it could make a sea change in thinking. “We need that peer, right?” Supporters would start looking for better.

“Very soon, it could become a new norm. Consider what happened with smoking ban. Now it’s absolutely bizarre to think we’re sitting in the pub and people would smoke around us. But that used to happen. We accept the norm very, very easy.

“And here’s the norm that, in essence, clubs decide to damage the air we inhale quite significantly when it absolutely is not necessary.” With clubs like Plymouth leading the way, ambition is to show that there is another way.