How Green Economy helped the ECB Build a national environmental strategy

Why the ECB needed a unified sustainability approach

In 2015, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the governing body for professional and recreational cricket, restructured its facilities department to unify oversight of both grassroots and professional cricket venues. This reform highlighted a critical gap: while some venues were independently advancing sustainability initiatives, others were at the beginning of their planning process. With no formal environmental strategy in place, and rising fixed costs, the ECB recognised they needed support to progress action.

• Onsite reviews: Visiting   all professional cricket venues to assess existing energy use, resource efficiency and operational challenges at both large and small venues.
• Carbon footprinting: Developing a framework by which the ECB could understand its Scope 1, 2 emissions and identify areas of the business where changes could be made.
• Strategy development: Creating a practical, scalable environmental strategy tailored to the needs of both professional and grassroots venues across the country.
• Knowledge transfer: Equipping decision-makers with the tools, data, and confidence to act, and aligning funding with action plans.

Project outcomes

Following completion of Green Economy’s project, the ECB have seen the multiple outcomes

• The ECB Environmental Sustainability plan for cricket: this project informed the national sustainability strategy for the game which was published in 2023 and individual professional clubs are now producing their own plans informed by the strategy.
• Sustainability Manager: appointment of an ECB sustainability manager to coordinate and take forward this work
• Enhanced Monitoring: Improved energy monitoring processes to ensure decisions are backed by data. For instance, it was widely assumed that floodlights were a major contributor to emissions, but reporting found that baseline energy was far more significant.
• Operational Efficiency: Clubs with stretched operations teams, or run by volunteers now use standardised project recommendations to prioritize actions and secure buy-in.
• National Reporting: The ECB has reported its carbon footprint, including SECR-compliant Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, in its Annual Report for three consecutive years.
  Signed up to the UN’s sports for climate action framework: following the work the ECB formalised the strategy by committing to this international framework for the sector.