“We must be an example to be credible”

In 2019, Real Bétis Balompié, became the first football club to join «Climate Neutral Now», a United Nations initiative. In addition to this achievement, the Sevillian football club launched the «Forever Green» platform materialising their ambitions for the future. Rafael Muela Pastor, General Manager of the Foundation spoke to Sport and Citizenship about this.

Why did you come up with the idea of creating Forever Green? What was the context?
RMP: Real Betis have been trying to be part of the solutions and part of an organisation that is tackling these challenges we face. Thus also our motto: “Viva er betis manque pierda” which means “Go Betis even if you lose”. At some point, if we try to do our best in sport, we also want to do a lot against climate change, because it is an urgent issue. The company “Green Earth” was one of our sponsors. Through them we were linked to the UN initiative “Climate Neutral Now” and we realised that we had this urgency and that we had the power to do something. We wanted to be a solution for our community.

Can you give us some concrete actions implemented within the project?
RMP: We have five main areas in our programme: recycling, mobility, climate change, nature and club.
As far as recycling is concerned, we promote any kind of recycling through campaigns. We spread the message to the fans during matches, but also to companies. We are promoting sustainable mobility. On match days, we run special campaigns to encourage fans to travel to the stadium with
eco-friendly means of transportation and our employees to cycle to the stadium. Then, nature is the area in which we try to have an impact in the ecosystem.
The concept of “plogging” – cleaning walks, is important to us: we go out in teams to clean up nature!
Regarding climate change, the aim is to become carbon neutral by 2040.
Also, we were the first football club to join the UN initiative “Sports for Climate Action”. Finally, the club space is important. If we want people to change, we must first change internally. We must be an example to be credible. Everyone in the club is involved in reducing our carbon footprint.

You do have a strong impact at the local level. How do you manage to mobilise the fan community on these issues?
RMP: If we want to mobilise our fans, we use the power of football. We want them to be a part of the action and solutions.
The actions towards the supporters go through social media. We use the image of our players and promote actions around the club. The “forever green match” against Bilbao in March engaged the fans. We carried out more than 15 eco-responsible actions that day.
Towards the companies, we offer them our platform. If we reach out to companies, we reach out to every space in the world and to many more people.

Interview by Sophie Lopez et Martin Richer

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