The climate crisis is a daily reality. It already affects billions of people and exacerbates existing inequalities as well as impacting football itself.
Meeting the scale of the challenge requires action, empowered stakeholders, and efficient agents of change. Football, the world’s most popular sport, is one of the few cultural forces strong enough to support hardest hit communities move towards a just and inclusive climate transition.
Communities hardest hit by the consequences of climate change face major obstacles on the road to ensure their adaptation, such as lack of recognition, lack of incentives to engage, lack of access to education and solutions, or minimal financial and technical support.
We are convinced that football is a unifying force with the unique ability to bring billions of people together, cross geographic and social boundaries, and reach deep into communities both at a grassroots and professional levels. That’s the main asset needed to work efficiently on climate justice. Yet, this force for good has not been leveraged yet to support the transition of communities vulnerable to climate change. What’s more, even though the football industry has the power of influence and the resources to be potentially a genuine leader on socially transformative climate action, its engagement is extremely limited.
The Common Goal movement mobilises its forces and expertise to engage the football ecosystem on climate justice efforts and support the football for good sector and their communities on their journey towards a just and inclusive climate transition.
We have set a dynamic strategy to work across three levels:
- Community football
- The global football Industry
- Professional football
Fostering community climate adaptation and resilience through football for good organisationsDeeply rooted in communities, the football or good sector has the expertise to address local societal challenges. However, limited engagement and capacity football for good organisations from endorsing the role of agent of change to address local climate action effectively. Moreover, climate change impacts football for good organisations themselves leading to challenges on programmes’ delivery (eg. storms destroying sport infrastructures, extreme heat threatening the health of players and supporters, etc).
We roll out and scale solutions that contribute to local resilience and adaptation (eg. playbooks of climate adaptation solutions, self-assessment tool, awareness raising toolkit, curriculums) and provide networking and partnerships opportunities such as access to experts and support. Through these activities we aim to:
- Adapt organisations’ infrastructures to sustain their ability to deliver sports for good activities
- Engage and equip football for good organisations to positively contribute to climate adaptation and resilience of their communities, and
- Enable organisations to influence the education of the leaders of tomorrow on climate, and to support their communities in taking ownership of the situation and finding solutions to act.
Engage (with) professional football and the global football industry towards environmental sustainability and climate justiceCommon Goal is engaging with athletes, clubs, governing bodies and brands to leverage their voices and influence on these topics and create alliances and bridges with the football for good sector in order to secure funding in its work with communities towards climate adaptation and resilience.
We empower athletes (Climate Champions Community) to leverage their voice and raise awareness on selected environmental issues and to promote environmentally sustainable practices among fans and the football ecosystem; lead intentional advocacy campaigns and voice our messages in the right circles.
Tailored grant making initiatives is a key tool that we facilitate and monitor to channel industry’s support towards community-based projects and solutions. Activities focus on raising awareness on environmental sustainability at the community level and implementing locally-adapted solutions to local environmental challenges. We prioritise communities hardest-hit by the effects of climate change, in particular women and youth in the Global South.