Wolves Foundation join the Clean Air Champions League
Wolves’ Premier League fixture with Arsenal today offers the opportunity for the club to highlight their ‘One Pack One Planet’ project, which features four key commitments to environmental sustainability.
As well as pledging to reach net zero by 2040, the key goals also focus on addressing waste, protecting nature and embedding sustainability across the club.
Wolves Foundation also contribute to the One Pack One Planet ethos by considering sustainability across all their delivery, and they are now getting involved in an exciting new initiative focused on tackling air pollution across the continent.
The Clean Air Champions League is being led by Irish club Bohemians and supported by the European Football for Development Network, and will feature the installation of air quality monitoring systems at five different venues across Europe, tracking the emissions around the respective stadia.
Alongside the collection of this data, an online resource will feature a ‘live’ league table ranking clubs based on the local air quality, as well as fan and community led initiatives to raise awareness and encourage action on air quality and climate health.
Wolves are the first English club to take part in the Clean Air Champions League, alongside not just Bohemians but also ADO Den Haag from the Netherlands, Real Betis from Spain and the Bulgarian Football Union.
“The concept is that each club or organisation will have an air quality monitoring system installed at their stadium or training facility, from which the date will be able to tell the story about the level of the emissions in the locality,” says Jonathan Warburton, Wolves Foundation’s Head of Programmes for Education, Employability and Youth Engagement.
“That goes into a league table which isn’t just based on emissions but also the number of people who are engaged in activity to build awareness such as educational workshops.
“The partners on the project held their first meeting just before Christmas, and there is plenty more preparation to be done over the coming months before the Clean Air Champions League officially launches in 2026.”
From a Foundation and Wolves point of view, the project and data collected will lead to an extensive engagement exercise as to what can be done, if needed, to improve the air quality around Molineux.
“Our role at the Foundation will be to build and develop a plan of educational workshops across the community,” adds Jonathan.
“We will be speaking to fans, local residents, people who work nearby and local schools to assess the best ways of responding to the data, and to see what actions we can all take to improve the air quality within the city.”
