Spanish La Liga side, Real Betis has officially joined the Climate Neutral Now initiative of UN Climate Change, committing to take action to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and to compensate the rest.
The initiative means the Seville based side becomes the first football club to join the initiative, as it commits to becoming a platform and a facilitator for raising awareness about the urgency of climate action among its millions of fans worldwide.
Club President, Ángel Haro emphasised the importance of the initiative to Betis: “Since the beginning, Real Betis Balompié has been about its family, its members and fans. We strive to ensure that they feel Betis represents them and supports them, just as much as they support us.
“Taking action on climate is also about them, it‘s about our family. We understand that climate change is a threat to the livelihoods and the wellbeing of everyone on the planet, and we are doing our part.”
The club’s Business Director Ramón Alarcón commented: “Our plan is to develop a detailed inventory of our emissions and define more actions to be taken to reduce emissions. But we will not wait.
“We are already implementing easy to implement opportunities and we will become a channel for communicating the urgency and the opportunities for taking climate action, starting in-house with our players and staff. In our country, we are already experiencing extreme heat and an increasing lack of water. We all have to do our part.“
Niclas Svenningsen, manager of Global Climate Action at UN Climate Change added: “We are encouraged to see Real Betis align its business with the climate agenda. We are inspired by their focus on serving their community, engaging their fans, and working together with others in a respectful, responsible manner. We are happy to have them as one of the signatories of our Climate Neutral Now initiative.”
