Carbon Offsetting: Aston Villa, Liverpool & Spurs

Aston Villa offset the carbon emissions of their stadium for 2023, boasting the only carbon neutral stadium in the Premier League.

Liverpool are the only other club to have reported purchasing carbon offsets & Spurs have undertaken actions to offset including tree planting at their training ground.

Carbon Calculations: Wolves, Man City & Spurs

18 out of the 20 top flight clubs reported their Scope 1 & Scope 2 emissions (see glossary below for explanation), however Wolves produced the most detailed attempt for Scope 3 emissions - which are typically the hardest to determine and form the largest part of most companies carbon footprint.

Man City & Spurs also created detailed Scope 3 calculations for the previous season, but we are awaiting an update for 2022/23.

Carbon & Sustainability Reports: Arsenal, Spurs & Man City

14 out of the 20 clubs have dedicated sustainability sections on their websites. Arsenal, Spurs & Man City have all gone a step further with detailed sustainability reports, setting out their carbon performance and plans for the future.

A special mention also goes to Liverpool, who produced The Red Way - their sustainability report - in 2021/22, we’re hoping an updated version will come out soon.

Smallest Carbon Footprint: Sheff Utd

Sheffield United at 429 tonnes CO2e reported the small carbon footprint of all of the clubs. The average was 2,056 tCO2e.

We need to be careful when directly comparing carbon footprints - as strange as that sounds - although most clubs adopted the government’s conversion factors in their SECR reporting, they may still have different methodologies and also each club may have structural reasons why they have a higher or lower footprint: older stadia, less public transport nearby etc.

Lowest Carbon Intensity: West Ham

West Ham had the lowest carbon intensity of 2.96 tCO2e per £1M of turnover. The average 9.44 tCO2e /£1M.

Although a variety of intensity metrics were used (see next point) we converted all to Turnover, the most common choice used by 14 clubs.

Carbon Intensity Metric: Brentford

14 out 18 clubs use turnover as their carbon intensity metric, which is the most common choice for most companies across the UK. We particularly liked Brentford’s use of Fan Visits for their intensity metrics, which we feel could become a very helpful metric, particularly as Scope 3 emission reporting becomes more common.

Most Improved: Spurs

Most improved would normally take a much higher profile in the highlights, however as the prior year was heavily impacted by Covid, it makes year on year comparisons very difficult. Nonetheless, Spurs deserve a special mention for reducing their Scope 1 & Scope 2 carbon footprints by 31% over the period.