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How one sport charity is changing the sustainability game
Pledgeball is a charity that seeks to change attitudes and encourage people to make better lifestyle choices that are more sustainable by harnessing the power of the collective.
Their strategy is seemingly simple: sporting fans attending games pledge to make a chair or lifestyle swap that is better for the planet.
The pledge is a record of the change you’re making. Whether it’s as simple as swapping to reusable water bottles, or as big as ditching your diesel car for an electric upgrade, the pledges cover many areas of life.
is needed now More than ever
These pledges encourage individuals to be conscious of the impact their actions can have for good.
Each fixture allows those individuals to record those pledges, collates them and places each team into the Pledgeball league. There you can see how your team fairs against others in the country.
Millwall are currently top of the league, with Bristol City Women in third and Bristol City Men in fifth place
The inception of the idea comes from Katie Cross, you put the idea into motion in 2019 after having numerous conversations with friends on improving sustainability in sport and encouraging awareness of climate change and its impact on the very sports they played and loved.
“Basically it started because I having taught climate change for years and I hadn’t realised how frighteningly close it was and I kind of went through this complete like shit, despair phase and I wanted to know what I could do as a result of it.”
She says she could see from the conversations she was having people agreed on the fundamentals, they wanted clean air, they wanted green spaces and a stable food supply.
So, she decided to share some statistics with her local women’s football team and to her delight they took her up on her offer to make some positive changes.
They set about creating their own local tournament of women’s and men’s five-a-side football. The only entry requirement was to make a pledge. They were given a free venue, they served food that would have been disposed off ordinarily, so they rerouted food from going to waste.
After the game they awarded the team that had pledged to save the most emissions as well as the team that had performed best on the pitch.
The initiative snowballed. Next there was an online conference, where Katie met people from across the world, all interested in her work. Then in 2021, Bristol City became the first professional club they partnered.
They now partner with clubs across the English Football League (EFL).
Katie Cross, CEO of Pledgeball, bringing the mission to the fans – photo: Pledgeball
Through this partnerships process they’ve been able to cultivate commitment to change from clubs within the EFL.
They developed the sustainable travel charter, with nine clubs currently signed to it, she says that they’re about to release that four more clubs have signed it within the EFL.
The aim of that was to reduce the number of domestic flights that had been taken by clubs within English football.
Now they work across many other sports and partners such as the Lawn Association.
She adds “We’re literally just people who are passionate about the environment and who love sports and it’s really fun.”
Young fans are engaging with Pledgeball to make a difference – photo: Pledgeball
The charity has gone from strength to strength, in 2024 Pledgeball were selected to work with UEFA and Mastercard in a pilot project around the Champions League and Champions League Final at Wembley.
This project chose organisations and startups to collaborate with one another to find specific solutions to specific challenges set by the host city with the goal of enhancing the tournament’s social and environmental impact.
Pledgeball worked with Mastercard to improve fan engagement and harness the power, passion and reach of football fans to create tangible, effective solutions for communities within the scope of fintech and digital fan engagement.
More recently they were named Grassroots Organisation of the Year at the BBC Green Sports Awards.
Katie Cross at the European Football Development Network – photo: Pledgeball
Main photo: Will Cooper/Bristol City
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