How Liverpool FC rallied fans and staff around its award-winning sustainability strategy
The Club’s sustainability strategy is called ‘The Red Way’ and was launched in 2021. Like many sustainability strategies, it is structured around three pillars – namely people, planet and communities.
But unlike many other sustainability strategies in sport from this time, it aligns with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework, the latter of which requires signatories to target net-zero by 2040 and set science-aligned interim climate targets for 2030.
Noteworthy progress has been made to date on the strategy’s ambitious goals. The Club has cut carbon emissions 15% against a 2019 baseline. Key decarbonisation projects have included increasing renewable electricity procurement, sourcing HVO for team buses and investing in SAFs to offset emissions from domestic team flights.
The Club has also planted more than 1,000 trees and hedges around its sites, and introduced 60,000 bees into local allotments and green spaces.
Shared responsibility
Liverpool FC’s impact director Rishi Jain attributes the success of the strategy partly to having senior leadership buy-in from the get-go.
The initial executive sponsor of The Red Way was chief commercial officer Ben Latty. The current executive sponsor is now Jonathan Bamber, chief legal and external affairs officer.
The strategy setup also includes specific, direct responsibilities for the chief financial officer, chief executive officer, chief operating officer and communications lead.
Jain says: “It’s not just me driving the board. It’s driven from the very top of the organisation… the expectations are very high for us to lead and demonstrate measurable progress.”
He re-joined Liverpool 2021 in a senior ED&I role, having previously worked on the Club’s charitable foundation and social inclusion initiatives in the early 2010s. His role was then broadened in 2023.
Importantly, he explains, he does not “own” all 18 objectives set under The Red Way. For example, the delivery of matchday waste management schemes sits with the grounds and facilities management team.
This creates a shared sense of responsibility and frees up Jain’s time. He sees himself as a convenor, who works to track and report progress against key objectives, and to provide guidance for colleagues seeking help evolving their approaches and programmes.
“Ultimately, my team’s role is to continually demonstrate measurable progress across those three pillars, and embed them in everything we do across the entire Club,” he summarises.
Collaboration and celebration
Beyond those with direct responsibilities, Jain says, “every single employee” at the Club “recognises that they have some level of responsibility” for delivering Red Way objectives.
“This isn’t a message from leadership telling everyone that they must do this. It’s positioned as a collective journey that we’re all on, and that we will support teams with.”
One of his top tips for staff engagement, beyond not forcing people to undertake tasks without a clear understanding of why, is to speak their language and appeal to their nature. In the sports industry, friendly competition is a great motivator, Jain says.
“The sub-strategy documents include what you’d expect to see from any sports organisation – trophies, winning, growth, and so on.”
Additionally, proper recognition never goes amiss. Jain says that he and other professionals in central, strategic roles regularly recognise those in club operations as the “heroes” of the strategy. This is because, without changes to their day-to-day routines, progress ultimately will not happen.
Evolving fan engagement
A big win for the Club’s operational teams so far has been achieving a 96% collection rate for plastic drinks bottles. Collected bottles are sent to a recycling partner for remanufacturing into sports equipment.
Fewer bottles are now being handed out in the first instance, too. An updated packaging approach, prioritising reusables and plastic-free alternatives, mitigates the use of around 350,000 plastic bottles at Anfield annually.
Fans were initially incentivised to recycle their bottles with prizes. There was also a period of intensive behaviour change messaging, with many materials featuring players.
These interventions have now been “stripped back” as behaviours like recycling and choosing reusables have become the norm.
“Supporters have got this sense of pride, and they recognise their responsibility,” notes Jain.
While player-fronted messaging has been scaled back for recycling, Jain explains that this approach is still useful for garnering fan engagement – and media coverage – around the launch of annual sustainability reports. These launches are purposefully timed around Earth Day (22 April).
“Fans love seeing players’ personalities… a report might not be the most digestible format, so you want to introduce it in a way that people will want to learn and understand more,” says Jain.
Transparency and walking the talk
The impact report launched in 2024 came out alongside a comedy video including several of the men’s team players. Around 100 media articles were published on the report.
For the report out in 2025, the Club worked with AXA on video content showing players from the men’s and women’s first teams embarking on a marine biology voyage. It bore the tagline ‘Reds for Blue’.
More than one-third of Liverpool’s fans are now aware of The Red Way, up from just 5% at the end of the 2021-22 season.
Jain emphasises the importance of having credible, verified data before jumping into storytelling: “We wouldn’t have done fun content without the reports underneath it as a foundation, because the last thing we want to do is to be seen making light of incredibly important topics.”
Liverpool is notably the first Premier League side to have achieved the ISO20121 standard for event sustainability management. It also aligns with the ISO50001 framework on energy management.
Jain additionally highlights the importance of sharing challenges, setbacks and the full story – not just the successes. This is particularly important in meaningfully measuring continuous improvement internally, and in creating ripple effects externally.
Liverpool FC is striving to engage 100% of commercial partners in The Red Way. But it also wants to see more organisations across the global sporting network aligning with frameworks like the UN SDGs and its Sports for Climate Action Framework.
Other Framework signatories at this moment in time include Arsenal FC, FIFA, UEFA, UK Sport and Sport England.
“It’s a privilege to be in a position that we can influence others,” Jain summarises.
“I think, as a football club, the expectations are probably higher on us than on others. You can either see that as a burden or an opportunity to do more.”
Hear from Rishi Jain at edie 26
Rishi Jain is among the 100+ sustainability, ESG and energy experts confirmed to speak at edie’s biggest event of the year, edie 26.
Taking place at London’s Business Design Centre on 25-26 March 2026, edie 26 will convene 1,000+ ESG practitioners for two days of workshops, networking, advisory clinics, roundtables and knowledge-sharing.
Jain is set to deliver a presentation on the Engagement & Reporting Stage. The stage agenda also features sessions on climate transition planning, creating engaging campaigns without greenwashing, and overcoming reporting fatigue.
Other confirmed edie 26 speakers include ISEP CEO Sarah Mukherjee, Forum for the Future’s executive director Dr Sally Uren and John Elkington, founder of Volans.
Click here for a full agenda & to register.
Published 22nd January 2026