This Earth Day we’re sharing our reflections on some of our efforts in the off-season to bridge the gap between local and global climate justice. The spirit of football is about bridging gaps, after all. We bridge gaps when people come together to co-create something beautiful: coaches, trainers, players, and fans are all contributing to something so much larger than the sum of its parts. It is in this spirit that we believe the greatest positive impact our club can have in our community is by using our platform to connect supporters through shared values and to bring awareness to the incredible organizations, businesses, community leaders, and initiatives that already exist and share our vision for a better tomorrow. We need all of us, because our club certainly doesn’t have the answers to all of the troubles in the world. But we know that strengthening our relationships with others who share a deep sense of love and gratitude for nature, and those who find vitality in the human capacity to act with kindness, generosity, compassion, and integrity, is our best way forward. It is with this in mind that we are grateful to share our journey with you all. We hope you will learn with us, share a sense of optimism when we inevitably fall short in our aspirations along the way, and find joy in our successes. Sharing our journey in this manner might just produce the ripple of inspiration that helps someone do whatever it is that they’ve been thinking about doing to make the world a little bit better. Each step, no matter how big or small, matters. It means we are one step closer to reconciling our relationships with nature and each other through respect, a shared recognition of interdependence, and dare we say it, some love. Let’s lay the foundation for a better tomorrow, together. Wishing you all an energized and inspired Earth Day.
Highlights:
- The Purpose of Open Tryouts
- Centering Equity and Accessibility
- Addressing Environmental Justice at the Local Level
- Bridging the Gap Between Local and Global Climate Justice
- Climate Tipping Points
- Climate Jenga and the Precautionary Principle
- Trialist Emissions and Reducing Transportation Pollution Where Possible
- Trialist Carbon Footprint
- Searching for Climate Justice
- The Tryout Tee
The Purpose of Open Tryouts
On January 7th we held our 2023 open tryout and welcomed 42 trialists to our home, Virtue Field. Tryouts are an inspiring and energizing moment for us: aspiring players arrive at our doorstep ready to leave it all on the pitch for an opportunity to play for our club. Witnessing their energy and passion reminds us why we started this club in the first place. Without a roster of talented and motivated players we wouldn’t exist, and tryouts can deliver unexpected and important additions to our squad, as was the case in our inaugural season. The club recognizes our responsibility to deliver an exceptional developmental experience for players, on and off the pitch, which starts at tryouts. For those who join our roster, we strive to support and empower these individuals to be successful in life, not just soccer. Former professional player and Vermont Green FC assistant coach and player, Reuben Ayarna, put it best: “The best feeling is helping someone, a young person, come up and be the best person they can be. If that’s going pro, great, but at the same time it’s not just about football, it’s about the person.”
We share a kindred spirit with trialists – we feel soccer is a means to achieve great things. For the club, soccer is our means to catalyze a more environmentally sustainable and socially just world. And the tryout is no exception to that purpose. We aim to give every player who aspires to play at a higher level a pathway and a fair shot. We also aim to celebrate local efforts, grow awareness, and make connections between community members and local organizations that offer environmental justice-oriented support for under-resourced individuals and families. This is the bridge between local and global efforts to advance climate justice.
Centering Equity and Accessibility
Financial accessibility for our community is a strategic priority for our club. We recognize that personal finances can be a significant barrier for players seeking to play at higher levels and our aim is to ensure that no player has to decide between meeting one’s basic needs and pursuing their soccer dreams. And it starts at tryouts, where any player who cannot afford the registration fee is eligible for a financial waiver. We also host the tryout on weekend mornings to avoid most work and school schedule conflicts. Similarly, we offer supporters our Spread the Love ticket so no one has to miss a game due to financial constraints.
Addressing Environmental Justice at the Local Level
This season we’re working to strengthen our efforts to advance environmental justice in our home state by pointing supporters to resources that advance energy equity. The club believes everyone deserves to have their basic needs met and a fair shot at a prosperous life. Access to clean, affordable energy is central to this aspiration, both locally and globally. Remember, there was a time when the image of billowing smoke stacks represented economic progress in the eyes of many. That narrative only started to change in recent decades, as pollution and climate change have increasingly harmed the health of society and the ecosystems we rely on for our survival. Evidence and awareness is also growing that fossil development and use is undermining economic development and is incompatible with poverty alleviation worldwide.
This could all be quite depressing if solutions didn’t already exist. Last season we discovered an organization whose approach to environmental justice impressed us so much that we invited them to one of our home games as a community spotlight. Their work is truly the boots on the ground action that is needed to address environmental justice challenges. This season we aim to make our supporters aware of the GreenSavingSmart program, starting with an invitation to be our community partner for our open tryouts.
Launched in March of 2022, GreenSavingSmart provides free coaching services and assistance to low- to moderate-income individuals and families. The program is intended to advance energy equity by addressing energy burdens – a household’s energy expenses divided by its income – and financial literacy. Racial equity is a core element of its services, having expanded financial accessibility and prioritized individuals and households who identify as Black, Indigenous, Person of Color (BIPOC), as well as former refugees and immigrants. Historically, these groups have lacked appropriate and sufficient support navigating the complex landscape of Vermont’s energy and financial services and programs provided by energy efficiency utilities, financial institutions, local utility companies, fuel providers, and others.
GreenSavingSmart helps people address housing and transportation burdens, which are prime examples of basic human needs that intersect environmental stewardship and social justice. Lead and radon exposure, asthma risks from poor indoor air quality, safety risks associated with aging vehicles, and natural disaster preparedness are some of the burdens disproportionately harming low-income earners, those who identify as BIPOC, and people who have recently immigrated to Vermont. Addressing these inequities improves health, wellbeing, and financial security, while reducing harm to our environment by decreasing the demand for fossil fuels, lowering carbon emissions, and lessening the use of and exposure to toxic chemicals.
At the club, making the transition away from a fossil-fueled, extractive economy, towards a renewably-energized, regenerative and distributive economy starts with prioritizing families and communities that have been historically marginalized and underserved by our economic system, and who remain disproportionately harmed by climate change. Energy production and use, in our local community and globally, is not only a lynchpin for a livable climate, it’s a catalyst for human prosperity and wellbeing. We can’t solve the climate crisis if we don’t solve the challenges of energy burdens, energy insecurity, energy poverty, and strengthen energy democracy.
GreenSavingSmart, alongside many other organizations and community leaders in Vermont, are contributing to the movement that addresses the challenges of our energy transition in a way that advances equity, equality, and wellbeing for all people.
They do this by providing coaches for eligible participants. Coaches listen to the needs of participants and provide customized support and resources to overcome unique barriers, manage personal finances, cut costs, enroll in available programs, and continue strengthening skills that advance personal financial and energy goals. For more information on the program and to enroll, visit: https://www.greensavingsmart.org/.
Bridging the Gap Between Local and Global Climate Justice
We began the journey towards climate justice at our inaugural season tryouts. You can read more on those efforts in “Trying Out For Climate Justice: Part 1” and “Trying Out For Climate Justice: Part 2.” Since then we’ve continued to learn a great deal about the diverse and growing movement for climate justice, particularly as it relates to organizations aspiring to join the global effort to achieve the Paris Accord targets (more on that below). At the center of the global effort is a responsibility to measure and report one’s carbon footprint with integrity, and to develop and implement a plan to reduce emissions in line with the pathway climate scientists have made clear is needed to avoid catastrophic climate change – reduce emissions 45% by 2030 and achieve net zero emission by 2050. Despite our relatively small stature as a polluter, there is a lot of work to do in the years ahead to measure and report our emissions.
We started the process in our first season by collecting information and activity data from our facilities, fans, merchandise providers, and players. Despite having some data and some tools to calculate emissions, we will be seeking third-party expertise to help us ensure a high degree of integrity with our emissions reporting, prior to establishing net zero targets. We are feeling hopeful, having set a strong foundation in our first season to give ourselves the best chance of succeeding in our net zero journey. We played our games at the University of Vermont whose energy is 100% renewable, partnered with Recover Brand who’s recycled apparel and circular model has a significant positive impact on the planet, tracked foundational activity data for future greenhouse gas reporting (fan transportation survey, facilities walk-through, player and staff transportation survey, and waste audits), promoted walking, biking, and public transportation to games, and worked to educate supporters on climate justice.
We also researched and explored carbon offsets for tryout emissions resulting from trialist transportation. What we found in that search appears reminiscent of a Wild West frontier, just without the fun of a groovy Will Smith soundtrack. The reality is the newness of the market landscape is producing more questions than we are finding answers for. However, the most important thing we have learned is that we don’t get to net zero by offsetting our emissions with carbon credits. We have to reduce our emissions at home, and some of our largest sources come from activities we don’t have complete control over, like fan transportation. That does not mean we don’t try, which is why we are following the Science Based Targets initiative guidance, which tells us the use of carbon credits cannot be counted as emission reductions toward the progress of near-term science-based targets. We do have the option for neutralizing residual emissions or to finance additional climate mitigation beyond our science-based emission reduction targets, which we intend to do.
We believe there is value in engaging with the ongoing discussions around the efficacy of carbon credits and offsetting. We also believe that paying for the carbon pollution we cause, while we develop and implement a plan to reduce those emissions, is appropriate and necessary. We are aware of the issues associated with carbon offsetting, and the risk of unintentionally participating in greenwashing if we invest in low quality carbon credits. However, at this stage in our club’s development, we see participation as a means of learning, contributing to the conversation, sharing our failures, and paying for the pollution we are not currently able to avoid. We believe investing in initiatives and projects that serve the families and communities most harmed by climate change, who also have contributed the least to the problem, is an essential part of contributing to the climate justice movement.
Watching the Clock: Climate Tipping Points
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) most recent AR6 report, scientists tell us our atmosphere can withstand around 360 billion more tonnes of carbon pollution for a 66% chance of limiting global heating to 1.5°C, which at current annual global pollution rates (~36 billion tonnes) we would surpass around 2030. 1.5°C of heating is the threshold scientists have identified as the ceiling that gives humanity the best chance to avoid triggering a cascade of significant and potentially irreversible changes to our Earth system. These significant changes are known as “tipping points,” where a seemingly small change – like a sustained percentage of a degree increase in regional average air or ocean temperature – pushes a system into a completely new state. If we exceed the 1.5°C global temperature threshold, there is a “significant likelihood” that multiple tipping points will be crossed.
Recently, Science published a review of hundreds of academic studies, offering a comprehensive synthesis of the current state of knowledge on tipping points. The study determined that if temperatures rise to 1.5°C, four “tipping elements” – large-scale components of the Earth system – like the West Antarctic ice sheet, will “likely” experience a tipping point. If we exceed 1.5°C and march on towards 2°C and beyond, additional large-scale parts of our earth system, like the Amazon Rainforest, become “likely” to experience a tipping point. Under current governmental climate policies, humanity will heat our planet by 2.6°C by the end of the century. This amount of heating would make 13 tipping elements either “likely” or “possible”. It’s important to note that the study also finds that even 1°C of heating, which humans have already caused, puts us at risk of having already triggered some tipping points, including the collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, which together would contribute to around 30 feet in sea level rise. Some tipping points, like the melting of ice sheets pose staggering social, political, and economical challenges to humans, while other tipping points, like the thawing of permafrost or the die off of the Amazon Rainforest lead to uncontrollable, runaway releases of greenhouse gas pollution that would drive global heating, trigger a cascade of tipping points, and lead to a breakdown of the global climate system.
Climate Jenga and the Precautionary Principle
It’s increasingly common to see the impacts of climate change highlighted in the news each week. Record-breaking heat waves, intensifying and enduring droughts, torrential flooding, melting glaciers, declining Arctic sea ice, and the list goes on. The difference between a symptom of global warming and a tipping point is the self-reinforcing, and irreversible change that takes place within an entire part of the Earth system once a condition is met. For example, it’s well understood that rising global temperatures lead to greater amounts of evaporation of water from our Earth’s surface into the atmosphere, which in turn leads to greater volumes of rain being dumped during rain events: cue intense flooding. This is a symptom of global warming with very real and dire consequences in the present, which will only increase if we continue to pollute our atmosphere. For example, this aspect of global warming was a contributing factor in the recent flooding in Pakistan, the result of an extreme monsoon season that dropped up to five times as much rain as the average for the past 30 years. This resulted in reported casualties of nearly 1,500 people and 1.2 million livestock. Another 30 million people were displaced from their homes. The context here is equally important. Pakistan accounts for only 0.9% of current global greenhouse gas emissions and 0.3% of historic GHG pollution (human-caused GHG pollution since the industrial revolution), but is among the top 10 countries most affected by climate change. The U.S., on the other hand, is responsible for 25% of historic emissions and is currently the second most polluting country in the world contributing around 13.5% of global GHG pollution in 2021. These numbers reveal a central theme of the climate justice movement: responsibility. Humans have pumped ~1.5 trillion tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution, heating the Earth 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels. Certain countries, corporations, and higher income earners disproportionately contributed to that pollution. Our club lives in such a country.
We threw a lot at you back there, so let’s take a quick detour to games! We love games, obviously. It’s in our DNA you could say. But you know what game we no longer like? Jenga. Sure, it was once fun to see our friends and siblings make the final, fatal move that toppled their hopes and dreams. Ahem, losers. Yet humanity is now playing Jenga with our Earth system and we’re not feeling the same schadenfreude watching the final stage of this momentous game. As we heat the planet, we continue to remove blocks. At a certain point, we will remove a block and the entire tower collapses.
Despite the uncertainty that comes with doing complex science, we can understand certain truths about the functionality of our climate and elements of our Earth system. We are seeing the impacts both in real time and can make reasonable predictions about what the future may hold. For example, climate change forced around 30 million people out of their homes in 2020 due to weather and climate hazards. This is something we can measure. If we continue polluting our climate at current rates, we could force 1 billion of our fellow humans out of their homes due to climate impacts by 2050. This is a prediction based on climate science and its impacts, which we should take seriously. And forced migration is only one aspect of climate change. There’s also the matter of life or death for many around the world. At least 3.3 billion people “are highly vulnerable to climate change” and 15 times more likely to die from extreme weather, according to a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. And it’s not just us. Animals and plants are going extinct at levels not seen in all of human history – one million species are at risk of extinction, many within the next decade. Climate change is a significant driver and accelerator of this. For example, nearly 3 billion animals were killed or displaced by Australia’s devastating bushfire season of 2019 and 2020, climate change made them 30% more likely to happen.
Trialist Emissions and Reducing Transportation Pollution Where Possible
Transportation emissions from fans, players, and staff are one of the club’s key sources of carbon emissions. Whether that’s driving our players to away games, or fans coming to our home matches, it is one of our biggest and trickiest sources of emissions. And we’re not alone.
Transportation in the U.S. is the leading source of the greenhouse gas pollution driving climate change, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This is also true of Vermont. Due to its rural and village-based land-use patterns, automobile use accounts for 90% of commute trips. Despite efforts by the state and supporting transportation organizations to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by Vermonters, the state remains above the national average and has seen a 4% increase in VMT since 2014.
We’ve partnered with the Chittenden Area Transportation Management Association to help us leverage the strong ecosystem of transportation options and resources in the state. This is a long-term priority and part of our net zero efforts, but it will require continued collaboration with existing service providers, as well as new opportunities as electric vehicles and charging infrastructure become more accessible in the coming years.
Trialist Carbon Footprint
And the winning number is…one. We know, it’s not quite as exciting when we’re talking such small numbers, but remember, we’re playing planetary jenga like a bunch of sado-masochists right now. This year trialists drove, carpooled, took public transportation, and walked. For trialists that indicated they were interested in carpooling, we made those connections. In total, trialists emitted less than one tonne of carbon pollution.
Searching for Climate Justice
The climate justice movement prioritizes the people who are most vulnerable to climate change and who have contributed the least to the problem. Extreme poverty makes people especially vulnerable to frequent and extreme weather events, natural disasters, and other threats to food and water security, cultural integrity, and livelihoods. Those living in extreme poverty are commonly located in regions that are projected to be most impacted by climate change. Those regions are home to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) who are historically the lowest GHG emitters, but are disproportionately harmed by climate change. For example, countries in the Global South (including Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia) contribute only 8 percent of cumulative carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. On the other hand, high consumption in the Global North (driving high levels of carbon pollution and waste) relies significantly on natural resource extraction and labor in the Global South. If you shared that little factoid with a child, they’d probably ask you if that is fair. Why is it that kids always have to ask such hard-hitting questions?
We aren’t able to reduce transportation emissions to zero at this point in time, so we have to look to the carbon markets to purchase verifiable, high-quality carbon credits in our effort to neutralize those emissions. We’d love to have some certainty that our purchase of a carbon credit is genuinely reducing carbon pollution – if only it were so simple. Carbon markets and the buying, selling, and trading of carbon credits have a mixed track record of producing positive results for the climate due to the environmental integrity – real, measurable and additional emission reductions – of carbon credits. If a company purchases low-quality carbon credits and is not following climate science best practices, they run the risk that their climate impact claims are actually greenwashing. Moreover, the movement for climate justice has in large part dismissed carbon offsets as a “false solution,” which allows nations and corporations in the Global North to continue polluting our atmosphere with greenhouse gas emissions while relying on the Global South to offset their emissions. The process of private companies investing in carbon reduction initiatives in the Global South has earned the name “carbon colonialism” due to regrettable examples of initiatives that have had adverse impacts on local livelihoods.
These are real concerns, which we share. We also need to continue our search for real climate solutions despite the uncertainties and opacity that still exists in the carbon markets today. Gratefully, we’ve run across a lot of excellent advice in our search, like the recommendations of the Carbon Offset Research and Education (CORE) initiative by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and Greenhouse Gas Management Institute (GHGMI). They have distilled the essential elements of carbon offset quality down to five criteria: additional, not overestimated, permanent, not claimed by another entity, and not associated with significant social or environmental harms. We consider each of these criteria when we source our carbon offsets, and seek out the sources that provide transparency and accountability across criteria. Additionally, we are building on the criteria we identified last season to help us view projects through a climate justice lens. The Project Drawdown Climate Solutions and Co-Benefits for Human Well-being guidance is a tremendous source of guidance that is helping us strengthen our approach to carbon credits through a climate justice lens.
The Drawdown Lift framework is especially useful for identifying solutions that advance both climate action and human well-being. Their criteria helps us make choices that reduce existing inequalities while facilitating a just transition to low-carbon economies in LMICs (while preventing and minimizing adverse outcomes).
During our search for projects, we discovered the Tuungane Project in Tanzania, which has supported healthier families, fisheries, and forests in western Tanzania. We were so impressed by its multi-dimensional impacts, we looked into its project partners to see if other such projects existed and could be financed through carbon credits. We discovered Carbon Tanzania, one of the project partners, is working on similar projects, such as the Ntakata Mountain project, partnering with eight village communities and approximately 17,000 people. The project supports sustainable incomes through carbon credits that fund conservation work and the protection of nature. Moreover, the Verified Carbon Standard has vetted and certified the project to ensure measurable, high-integrity outcomes, which is why we decided to purchase our credit through their organization.
We feel like we have only just begun our journey through the carbon market landscape. Although it’s not a straight path, using climate justice as our guide is helping us navigate the terrain. And as the Drawdown report notes, “addressing climate change and improving the well-being of people experiencing extreme poverty—two grand challenges of the 21st century—must occur simultaneously and, ideally, synergistically. These two inextricably intertwined issues will shape the well-being of humanity for the rest of the century and beyond.” And we are hopeful, backed by such guidance, that we will find our way to more projects that avoid the historic pitfalls of carbon offsetting and allow us to make a small contribution to the movement for climate justice.
The Tryout Tee
Clothing is one of society’s great storytellers. We dress ourselves according to personal tastes, professions, culture, community, religious beliefs, and, increasingly, our values. Soccer fans understand this as well as anyone. The jerseys we wear broadcast our sports allegiances and our passions, fond memories, and the places we’ve traveled. Clothing can be meaningful or vapid, a source of pride, or leave us wanting more.
The tryout tee is just one of the ways we’re sharing our values: we need to urgently redress the abuse we’re doling out on our planet. At the current rate of global carbon pollution, we will exceed the 1.5°C limit of global heating; this is not a drill, this is indeed urgent. Not only did trialists promote that message during the tryout, they took the shirt home with them, spreading the message among their networks and in the community.
The tryout tee was also selected because of its environmental and social responsibility attributes, which include fewer carbon emissions and reducing plastic pollution compared to conventional tees. Our vendor, Recover Brand, also pays a fair wage to workers and gives customers the opportunity to return the shirt at the end of its useful life so it can be upcycled into a new shirt. The ability to keep our apparel in circulation is a huge deal and is representative of the larger shift needed in our economy, away from the linear extraction and pollution model, to a circular, sustainable model. We also think that contributing to one garbage truck of clothing waste every second seems like something we should probably reconsider. Right? Recycling our waste into useful items is an old idea that is fit for today’s purpose. Like soccer balls made from recycled plastic bottles, which we provided at tryouts, we can choose vendors who are on the vanguard of change, large and small – it all makes a difference.
If you’ve made it through this Earth Day tome, wow, you are a diligent little reader and we love you for that. We hope some of our efforts are able to light a spark with our community and we are grateful to share this journey with all of you. Much love and happy Earth Day. 🌎