It was watching an episode of Blue Planet 2 that set Bristol City’s Head of Sustainability and Climate Change, Peter Smith, on the path that would lead to the Club becoming the second EFL team to achieve GreenCode accreditation.

It was that moment in 2018 which sparked an idea that would evolve into Project Whitebeam, a joint initiative between Bristol City, Bristol Bears, Bristol Flyers, Ashton Gate Stadium and Bristol Sport to recognise, measure and mitigate their impact on the environment.

Bristol City now join Forest Green Rovers, widely recognised as the greenest Football Club, not just in England, but across the world, as one of two EFL Green Clubs with GreenCode accreditation.

Green Clubs is the EFL’s environmental sustainability initiative, which was established in 2021, with Clubs invited to take part on a voluntary basis. Reflecting the appetite to make a real difference among football, the Green Clubs scheme currently has 54 members – 51 Clubs and three Club Community Organisations – signed up to the scheme.

The programme offers an online resource hub for Clubs to access, with training opportunities and webinars and all participating Clubs receive bespoke one-to-one consultancy sessions from GreenCode to help them improve their environmental performance.

Achieving GreenCode accreditation is a challenging process, but Smith believes it is very attainable and cites Forest Green Rovers as a blueprint for other Clubs to follow.

“It’s a very thorough process and it’s a very high bar but I think that’s right,” he says. “It should be a high bar to get the full accreditation. What I would say though is that it’s not impossible for Clubs to do. I like to think we’ve shown Clubs can make quite rapid progress in a short period of time.

“What Forest Green are doing is very ambitious but much of what they do is completely achievable by most Clubs. They are a normal Club, with normal fans and normal players and they have trailblazed and paved the way for others to follow.”

Alongside their GreenCode accreditation, Bristol City has received further recognition for their environmental efforts, winning EFL Green Club of the Year in 2023 and the Football Supporters’ Association Climate Action Award and were ranked as the Championship’s most sustainable Club by Sport Positive.

Smith is understandably proud of their achievements while acknowledging that there is far more for his Club, football and the wider sporting landscape to achieve: “It lights the fire under our feet to keep going,” he adds.

“We are fully aware that we still have things that we need to improve but it’s great for us that we are one of the leaders on this now and it’s also great that other Clubs are following suit.

“We don’t want to be one of a small number of Clubs, charging out ahead of others, we want everybody to be in the pack because that’s realistically what’s going to make the most difference.

If we have 92 Clubs and 92 sets of fanbases pulling together and inspiring sport to change on this, it will make a much bigger impact.”