Forest Green chairman Dale Vince speaking at the United Nations COP24 event today

Dale will speak twice at the conference to mark Forest Green Rovers’ Momentum for Change award, with a ‘fire-side’ chat alongside other winners today, before doing a talk tomorrow entitled Creating the Greenest Football Club in the World – Forest Green Rovers – after the club was recognised as a ‘Lighthouse Activity’ as the only club in the world to go carbon neutral through the UNFCCC.

Sports for Climate Action is a new initiative, launching at an event today, which aims to encourage the global sports community to combat climate change in line with the goals of Paris Agreement - using the power of sports as a unifying tool to drive climate awareness and action among global citizens.

Dale Vince said: “Working with FGR we thought we could reach a new audience of people – people who had not really been touched by eco messaging in the past. It’s quite an improbable combination I think – the environment and football but we’ve pulled it off. We’ve reached 3.5 billion people just in the last year through our message and we’ve engaged a lot with other sports clubs and organisations around the world so it’s been a great success.

“Tackling climate change seems to me to be the most important thing in life really, other than family, but the most important thing to spend my time doing. For me it’s about sustainability and climate change is the biggest threat that we face.”

Forest Green Rovers has been recognised by FIFA as the world’s greenest football club - bringing together football and environmental consciousness in a way no other football club in the world is doing – from our fully organic pitch and vegan matchday menu to our stadium solar panels and electric vehicle charge points.

You can find out more about the club’s green initiatives, including plans to build the greenest football stadium in the world here.