Announced during the second workshop of the GSS2025 workshop series, “Who is Driving Sustainability in the Premier League and How Sustainable is English Football?”, the results position these three clubs as leaders across the holistic seven-pillar sustainability framework.

Alongside these three, other Premier League clubs, Brentford, Manchester City, and Wolves,  were also recognised for achieving Developing status, demonstrating progress across various aspects of sustainability.

The announcement came after months of analysis conducted through the GSS Assessment Tool, a robust methodology combining desktop research, AI-powered benchmarking, and expert evaluation. The tool assesses organisations against the Seven Sustainable Pillars of Sport: Partnerships, Participation, People, Planet, Power, Profile, and Prosperity.

The workshop featured a panel of expert speakers alongside GSS CEO Mike Laflin. Dr Mark Doidge, Reader in the Sociology of Sport at Loughborough University, brought an academic lens to sustainability in football, drawing on research around governance, participation, and fan culture. He was joined by Niall Couper, CEO of Fair Game UK, a football reform initiative advocating for better governance, financial sustainability, and community engagement across the English football pyramid. Together, they provided valuable insight into the structural challenges facing football and the opportunities for transformative change through sustainability leadership.

Mike Laflin, CEO and Founder of Global Sustainable Sport, highlighted the necessity of a sport-specific framework, stating: “I feel that sport is much more outward-looking, whereas ESG tends to be a very internally focused mechanism. Sport needs something that really captures the true value of sport.” He emphasised the importance of embedding sustainability into “every department of an organisation, connecting everybody into a joint mission of creating a sustainable organisation.”

Seven Pillars of Progress: Who’s Leading the Premier League

The GSS framework provides a sector-specific roadmap, moving beyond generic ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) metrics and the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which Laflin noted are “very hard for sports organisations to report against.” The programme encourages organisations to become Champions of Sustainability across all seven pillars, fostering an aspirational yet inclusive approach where “everyone wins, including society and the planet, if all organisations become champions.”

Partnerships: Fostering Collaboration for Collective Impact

Five clubs demonstrated strong engagement with sustainability-focused partnerships and alliance programmes:

Arsenal, Liverpool, Nottingham Forest, Tottenham, and Wolves all achieved Developed status.

This pillar examines collaborations with academic institutions, sponsors, suppliers, and service providers, as well as participation in initiatives such as the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework. All five clubs are active in this UN initiative, and all but Liverpool are also members of BASIS.

Premier League clubs demonstrated notable engagement through:

• 16 joint charitable initiatives
• 14 collaborative green projects
• 12 sustainability education programmes

Laflin stressed the importance of collective action: “These issues are bigger than any one single organisation, and they need collective action on a global scale. Sport can achieve that.”

Participation: Driving Inclusion and Engagement

This pillar assesses efforts to promote inclusive access to recreational and competitive sport, including for children, disabled people, and marginalised communities.

Clubs that achieved Developed status:
Brentford, Liverpool, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest, and Southampton

Laflin passionately defended this pillar’s relevance: “I think the industry is not realising a unique asset that it has, getting people active, and connecting that into health and well-being. With the UK spending £200 billion on the NHS and just £2 billion on sport, we are missing a huge opportunity to reduce pressure on health services through sport.”

People: Investing in Communities and Inclusion

This pillar focuses on social initiatives including anti-racism, EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion), youth safeguarding, human rights, and partnerships with schools and charities.

Developed status was awarded to:
Arsenal, Brentford, Liverpool, Newcastle, and Tottenham

Liverpool stood out with its foundation delivering £92 million in social return on investment (SROI) in 2024. Manchester United, Brentford, Newcastle, Tottenham, Everton and West Ham also reported strong SROI performance.

Mark Doidge observed that much of this progress is driven by foundations and trusts affiliated with clubs, although the strength of their integration into club structures varies significantly.

Planet: Addressing Environmental Responsibility

This pillar evaluates environmental management, including GHG emissions, waste, water and energy usage, and biodiversity initiatives.

Developed status was awarded to:
Arsenal, Brentford, Liverpool, Manchester City, and Tottenham

Reporting inconsistencies persist. Tottenham reported 84,000 tonnes CO₂e in Scope 3 emissions via its website but just 124 tonnes in its financial reports, compared to 22,088 tonnes for Arsenal.

Laflin remarked: “It’s like comparing apples, pears, oranges and coconuts.”
He added that while 17 clubs claim to have biodiversity plans, only a few are signed up to the UN Sport for Nature Framework.

Doidge noted that Premier League sustainability roles are still emerging, with many clubs only recently hiring full-time or part-time sustainability managers.

Power: Strengthening Governance and Accountability

This pillar evaluates good governance, transparency, safeguarding policies, ethics, and publication of ESG or sustainability reports.

All five top clubs only achieved Developing rating in this pillar:
Arsenal, Brentford, Chelsea, Newcastle, and Tottenham

Only three of the twenty clubs assessed acknowledged climate risk in their financial reports. Chelsea stood out, identifying 11 distinct climate-related risks.

A common concern was the short-termism of football governance. Niall Couper of Fair Game UK advocated for regulatory reform, suggesting that “distribution models should reward clubs that are well run and undertaking these sorts of initiatives.”

Profile: Communicating the Sustainability Journey

This pillar evaluates how clubs share their sustainability stories through websites, campaigns, news, and social media.

Developed status was awarded to:
Arsenal, Brentford, Liverpool, Tottenham, and Wolves

While most clubs feature sustainability content online, few offer interactive tools, dynamic reporting, or robust fan engagement. Laflin emphasised: “If you aren’t communicating what you are doing in sustainability, then you are not engaging your fans or your stakeholders.”

Prosperity: Securing Financial Sustainability and Innovation

This pillar assesses financial transparency, reporting, and long-term planning.

Developing status was awarded to:
Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham

While all clubs provide basic financial disclosures, only 25% publish full financial reports on their websites. Among the five top clubs by turnover:

• Manchester City were the only club to report a profit. (£73.8 million)
• Manchester United reported the highest loss of £55.1 million

Couper starkly illustrated the financial challenges in lower leagues, noting that: “A well-run Championship club like Millwall might still lose £10 million per year.” This underscores the broader challenge of achieving prosperity in a financially volatile industry. Couper also noted that despite the Premier League generating £3.2 billion in turnover, only £68 million was channelled into social and environmental programmes via club foundations.

The Urgent Need for Action

The workshop concluded by outlining four critical pressures driving sustainability in football:

• Escalating climate and social risks with 40% of English football clubs at risk of flooding.
• Reporting standards remaining inconsistent, making comparisons across clubs difficult.
• Rising stakeholder expectations
• Changing sponsorship and investor landscapes

Laflin warned: “Inaction or greenwashing can lead to reputational damage and missed commercial opportunities.”

Yet optimism prevailed. Clubs are beginning to appoint sustainability leads, UEFA has launched new GHG reporting guidelines, and Fair Game and others are pushing governance reform.

A Sector-Wide Opportunity

The panel agreed that sport holds a unique position to lead. “If we can align the assets of sport, participation, communication and passion, we can have a significant impact on health, the environment, and sustainability,” Laflin said.

The GSS Development Programme offers clubs tailored support to progress from activities to evidence and ultimately impact through its three-staged reporting process: Entry, Standard and Professional. The Premier League clubs were assessed under the Standard Assessment Programme, which covers activities and evidence, with Developed being the highest level achievable at that level.

The recording of the workshop is available to GSS Network subscribers.
Click here to access the recording

To learn more about subscribing to the GSS Network:
Click here for subscription information

A huge thank you goes to Sally McKendry who provided invaluable desktop research to support the assessment programme and to all the GSS team for their support in developing the assessment platform.

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