Real Betis & Real Sociedad Bet On Green

On Sunday, the 2022-23 La Liga season came to a close. FC Barcelona were crowned champions for the 27^th time, while Elche, RCD Espanyol, and Real Valladolid suffered relegation to the second tier of Spanish soccer. Real Betis Balompié and Real Sociedad both finished in the European places, with the latter qualifying for the UEFA Champions League for the first time since 2013-14. But the work of these two clubs off the field, in driving environmental sustainability, has been equally as eye-catching as their swashbuckling play.

Betis and Real Sociedad hail from opposite ends of the Iberian Peninsula. The former is from Andalusia, Spain’s southernmost province, known for its hot summers and slow-paced life. La Real is in the heart of the Basque Country, in the rainy city of San Sebastian on Spain’s northern coast. In recent years, climate change has been altering weather patterns across the country. This year, Andalusia saw record temperatures in April, while drought severely impacted water levels in Spanish reservoirs.

Real Sociedad’s International Area Manager, Iñigo Díaz de Cerio, says that precipitation is no longer consistent in San Sebastian. Instead, rain is coming less often, but in greater volume and temperatures are rising into the high 80s, something uncommon in the Basque Country. As a pilar of the community, Real Sociedad takes its role in promoting environmental sustainability measures quite seriously. The club continuously uses its platform to speak to community members young and old and to influence local change. Díaz de Cerio admits that the club’s push for change has been helped by the environmentally conscientious Basque community.

Díaz de Cerio says that for La Real, “acting sustainably is acting responsibly.” The club has been innovative in its approach to sustainability, developing projects that are stable and have long-term impact. Sareak – the Basque word for net – is a project that was four years in the making. Collaborating with local fishermen, the club recovers used fishing nets and recycles them into netting for soccer goals. In the two years that the project has been running, the club has successfully created 16 goals, which are used in youth beach soccer tournaments. The club plans to continue the project and will send nets to other areas of the province where new goals are needed.

La Real is also looking to address game day mobility and waste management issues. The club encourages fans to attend games by bike or public transportation. It established a partnership with a local school where fans can park their bikes. The parking area is closed, covered, and guarded and fits 300 bikes on game day. The initiative proved popular with over 2000 bikes being parked in the space over the season. However, not as popular as the club’s waste management policy for sunflower seeds.

Like Americans at baseball games, Spaniards enjoy eating sunflower seeds as they take in a game. Typically, thousands of shells are left littered in stadiums after each game, but not in San Sebastian. Six years ago, the club introduced special orange containers to collect sunflower seed shells. The shells are composted and used as natural fertilizer in public gardens around the city. The project has been a huge success, with an average of 175 pounds (80 kilos) of shells collected every home game. But Díaz de Cerio knows the true mark of success has been fans demanding new containers when they see they have been filled up or haven’t been replaced. The circular project has increased fan awareness of composting, aided in waste management, and has helped grow fresh vegetables and fruits in local gardens.

But this is just the beginning. Real Sociedad will be investing in their training facilities, making sure energy and water usage are optimized. The club is also pushing for hybrid cars for its staff and players and has hired a private agency to measure its carbon footprint and help it develop a cohesive sustainability plan, something Díaz de Cerio admits the club has lacked until now.

Like Real Sociedad, Real Betis is using its internationally recognized brand and position as the club with the fourth most supporters in Spain to push for greater sustainability in La Liga. Betis’s CEO Ramón Alarcón admits that climate change is affecting every sector of society, from food and energy production to environmental degradation, but says that Betis is proud of the actions it is taking to fight back.

In 2020 Betis signed up to the UN Climate Neutral Now Initiative. The club is committed to reducing and offsetting its emissions and seeks to become the first carbon neutral club in the world. The club went on to sign the UN Sports for Climate Action Initiative along with La Liga and has developed its own open platform, Forever Green, where companies can collaborate and use the power of soccer to reduce emissions and raise social awareness of the climate crisis.

Forever Green has gained international praise and has partnered with the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition, the regional Andalusian government, other soccer clubs like Manchester United and AS Roma, as well as insurance companies, car manufacturers and media groups to develop new climate friendly campaigns and messages. The platform has five focal points: mobility, climate change, nature, sustainable clubs, and recycling. Each point attempts to tackle a major sustainability issue through soccer and the platform continues to grow with over 130 projects and 80 participating organizations. This week, the first ever Forever Green gala will be held in Madrid where C-Suite executives of Spain’s most important companies, sports teams and La Liga will be in attendance to discuss the future of sustainability in sports and business.

Betis’s continued sustainability efforts earned it the number two position in the Brand Finance sustainability report, just behind Liverpool FC. Despite coming in second in the report, Alarcón describes Betis as “the greenest club in the world,” due to its environmental commitments and its classic green and white striped jersey.

At the core of Betis’s environmental strategy is communicating with fans and wider society, connecting with other clubs and organizations, and taking sustainable action. Betis will continue pushing the envelope on all sustainability issues. The club is developing a new stadium and training facility which will meet all the latest sustainable development criteria. Moreover, Betis will ensure all vehicles used in the training facility are electric and has reached an agreement with jersey manufacturer Hummel to use 100% recycled material as of the 2024-25 season.

However, both Betis and Real Sociedad understand that this fight is a long one, and one filled with moments of frustration. Balancing the competitive nature of sports with environmental responsibility has its difficulties and must be taken step by step. Real Sociedad recognizes that travel for competition produces high greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), but at times charter flights must be taken because there is no other viable transport option, or because players need adequate rest periods in a tightly packed match calendar. Betis CEO Ramon Alarcon maintains a positive outlook saying, “the greatest problem is that you cannot achieve perfection, but it is better to have a glass half full and try to continue filling it.”

Both clubs will be taking their sustainability efforts to North America this summer, as members of the La Liga’s North American Soccer Tour. They will compete alongside Sevilla FC and Atletico de Madrid in the US and Mexico where they have budding fanbases. Betis, like they do on every tour which involves international travel, will compensate for their GHG emissions by planting trees in the local community. The “Bosque Bético” (Betis Forest) will be planted in Oaxaca, Mexico, with the club donating one tree for each person traveling. Fans can see the teams and learn more about their sustainability initiatives on August 5^th at Oracle Park in San Francisco as part of a La Liga summer double header.