How collaboration is helping Gloucestershire to punch above its weight

Gloucestershire County Cricket Club recently brought together major figures in sport and sustainability in a bid to inspire and galvanise others to implement strategies that will benefit their local communities and the wider planet.

The Greener Games sustainability conference featured talks from three keynote speakers: Asif Rehmanwala, Chief Executive of Ecotricity; Tanya Aldred, climate journalist and Guardian writer; and Steve Simpson, a professor at the University of Bristol.

While Gloucestershire may not be a cricketing “giant”, those at the club still believe it has the platform to inspire change.

“Gloucestershire’s always seen itself as a club with a social purpose. It’s really rooted in its community and wants to do the right thing,” Neil Priscott, the club’s Interim Chief Executive, tells Global Sustainable Sport.

“We know we are not a giant within cricket, but we like to think we punch above our weight. Certainly this season, we were not fancied to win the T20 Blast, but we have this togetherness that makes it possible to achieve greater than the sum of our parts.

“I think with sustainability, we felt it was the right thing to do and it’s mirroring our community.”

Gloucestershire’s home ground Seat Unique Stadium is located in Bristol – a location that is considered to be at the forefront of sustainability within the United Kingdom.

Bristol was the first UK city to be named the European Green Capital in 2015, and more recently was named the greenest city in the country.

Within the county of Gloucestershire, other organisations are also leading the charge against climate change.

National League football club Forest Green Rovers is based some 45 minutes away, and is considered the world’s greenest football club by international governing body FIFA. FGR became the first football club to be certified carbon neutral by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2018, is the only vegan club globally, and has implemented a number of sustainable initiatives.

The aforementioned Rehmanwala, CEO at Ecotricity (the green energy business founded by FGR owner Dale Vince), is not only the Vice-Chairman at Forest Green, but is also on the board of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club.

This experience and knowledge can be utilised by Gloucestershire CCC to establish its own sustainable initiatives.

“We’ve got to be able to learn from others who are doing this really, really well,” says Priscott.

“And we’re not at Forest Green’s level, we absolutely know that. But we are learning all the time and getting better – we’re certainly not perfect.”

Priscott explains that the club also takes inspiration from its neighbours within Bristol – second-tier Championship football club Bristol City is located in the south of the city at Ashton Gate Stadium. Additionally, Priscott names other franchises and venues in cricket including Edgbaston and Worcestershire County Cricket Club, Lord’s and the Oval as inspirations on the sustainability front.

“We don’t have massive budgets, right? We don’t have the ability necessarily to do some of the things that Lord’s could do, but we absolutely use those networks to learn. People have also learned from us,” he says.

“We’ve got the most EV [electric vehicle] charging points at a cricket ground in the country. It’s only 13 but that’s 13 more than some. We’re just collectively trying to raise the bar.”

Even seemingly insignificant initiatives can make a collective difference, from implementing a reusable cup scheme to installing solar panels on the pavilion roof, or sourcing all food for the concourse locally.

Over and out?

As reported previously by Global Sustainable Sport, research has shown that cricket is likely to be one of the sports most impacted by global changing climate in the future. There is already plenty of evidence of the challenge worldwide.

During last year’s men’s World Cup in India, for example, heat and humidity affected 20 of the 47 matches played. A report published in 2019 found that more matches may need to be postponed or rearranged to avoid heat stress on players.

In the UK, climate change is more likely to bring about extreme weather conditions in the summer months, when the sport is played, with temperatures rising from between 1 and 6°C, leading to wickets that are up to 60% drier. Heavy rainfall is also more likely – on top of much wetter winters – according to the UK’s Met Office, bringing about further disruption to a sport in which rain delays are considered to be an inevitability.

However, the sport is taking solid measures. The influential Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has a ‘Net Zero Carbon Strategy’ while last year, the England & Wales Cricket Board became cricket’s first national governing body to join the UNFCCC’s Sports for Climate Action Framework, which also counts MCC and Melbourne Cricket Club among its signatories.

Initial steps

Gloucestershire may not be the biggest name in the sport, but it was the initial First-Class cricket club in the UK to sign up to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework initiative. It pledged to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2040 through joining the UN’s Race to Zero in 2021 and is also part of the Bristol Climate Nature Partnership.

Additionally, the club has linked up with The Next Test over the last few years, which is a non-profit organisation dedicated to connecting cricket, climate and sustainability.

Gloucestershire works with its local primary school to support a growing space for produce, with gardening classes to help understand where food comes from, and has future plans to link up with a neighbouring college.

Moving forward, Gloucestershire CCC is currently in the process of creating a strategy which will be published next year. Following its publication, the club then hopes to produce an annual report detailing its progress towards a sustainable future.

“We’re working towards next June and that’s good timing for us because that is probably the month where we have some of our biggest attendances,” comments Priscott on the anticipated publication of the strategy.

“That gives us our widest audience, and if we can build a plan that speaks to the wider Gloucestershire network – then hopefully people can take that back to their respective clubs and groups.”

Priscott also explains that next steps would include understanding the club’s own carbon footprint.

“The one thing I want to be really clear on, is that we don’t sit here and think ‘we can just relax, we’re doing everything great’. We’re not, we’re not doing everything great. We’ve really got a lot still to do, but we are being honest and happy to put out the stage we are at. It’s about transparency,” he says.

“I think our biggest strength is our collaborative approach and being able to bring people and organisations together – that is how we’re all going to improve. I say I’m most excited about that. It’s quite energising.”

Images: Wikimedia Commons, Martyna Bober on Unsplash, Pauline Bernard on Unsplash