Warwickshire County Cricket Club is staging a themed ‘Green Week’ at Edgbaston in a move designed to support the team’s long-term goal of the venue becoming the most sustainable cricket stadium in England.
The move is designed to highlight its current progress and to “inspire staff, commercial partners and suppliers.”
Craig Flindall, chief operating officer at the 25,000-capacity Edgbaston Stadium, said: “As a venue, we take our sustainability work very seriously and we have made several changes to our operations in recent months which have made positive change.”
The venue has underlined the five areas it will focus on to help reach its goal, including using power from renewable sources and reducing energy use.
Last year, the club named Haven Power its energy partner with a promise of using 100 per cent renewable power. Edgbaston is also working with consultancy Amber Energy on a full review of systems and processes that will reduce energy usage across the venue.
It will also focus on eliminating single-use plastics through programmes such as its recyclable e-cups, which have been in use at bars and kiosks since 2016, as well as introducing compostable hot drinks cups and food packaging this year. The cricket ground also has 11 water fountains installed to allow bottle refills.
Edgbaston is working to increase recycling and minimising waste by introducing waste streams for glass, food, cardboard packaging, wood, metals, electronic waste and batteries, paints and solvents, whilst on match days spectators are asked to separate general waste and recyclable waste into colour-coded bins.
The club also works with Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), which is created from the disposal of hygiene waste by PHS Washroom. One tonne of RDF energy is reportedly equivalent to the power required to heat an average family home for one year.
Any excess food stocks from the stadium are donated to local food distribution charity, Let’s Feed Brum, while waste management partner Suez handles all non-recyclable waste. The firm sells the waste to Scandinavian countries to burn for fuel.
The cricket ground is also looking to reduce its carbon footprint by increasing bike storage racks and shared bikes for staff to use, as well as partnering with a local train operator to provide match day travel discounts, among other initiatives.
Flindall continued: “We have grand ambitions to be the most sustainable cricket venue in the UK and are acutely aware that further work and long-term planning is required to achieve this goal.
“However, we believe that staging Green Week at Edgbaston is a good opportunity for our staff, suppliers and stakeholders to learn more about the great work that we are currently doing and to understand how making small changes to our lives can make a major difference to our environment.”
Image: JimmyGuano
Share this