On Wednesday, April 14, 2021, the Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) organised its first SDG Voice conference. The online event was focused on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations and outlined the importance of sustainability in football. Together with sports organisations, clubs, and federations, participants were offered various tools and good practices to get started with the SDGs themselves.
The conference was opened by Belgian Federal Minister of Climate, Environment, Sustainable Development and Green Deal, Zakia Khattabi. In her speech, she described the importance of collaborating and forming partnerships on the road to sustainable development. Football is an excellent stakeholder in this regard, which can have significant influence both within and outside the sport.
“Working with the RBFA as an SDG voice is a big step forward to sustainable development, through different partnerships, this positive influence can reach both inside and outside of football”
– Zakia Khattabi, Minister of Climate, Environment, Sustainable Development and GreenDeal
The RBFA as SDG Voice 2020 Subsequently, Hedeli Sassi, Football & Social Responsibility Coordinator at the RBFA, explained our ambassadorship as SDG Voice. The RBFA not only tries to create impact within its organisation, but also tries to promote the SDGs outside the organisation. The SDGs are part of the RBFA’s strategy in a sense that they provide a framework for the numerous social projects that are carried out.
Opening remarks by Minister Khattabi Zakia, Belgian Federal Minister of Climate, Environment, Sustainable Development and GreenDeal
The RBFA started from a stakeholder consultation and analysis, which proved to be a good starting point for working with the SDGs. Getting to know what internal and external stakeholders find important is of crucial importance for defining your focus. Starting with a narrower focus will allow you to create more impact on a single SDG. It will also ensure that you do not lose yourself in the SDGs. Every company’s or organisation’s strategy is tailor-made for their own way of working and with the SDGs it is basically the same. Organisations should stick to the SDGs which they can have a meaningful impact on. The stakeholder analysis will also be a great first means to know if there is any overlap in your way of working with that of your partners and allows you to see how this overlap can strengthen both sides to create synergies. Partnerships to achieve common goals, an often- underestimated SDG.
The RBFA’s SDG Sports Café The first part of the conference concluded with the ‘SDG Sports Café’, an open session for which various speakers were invited to share their best practice on working with the SDGs. Grace Veys kicked off our SDG Sports Café by sharing the work she does at Fare Network, an organisation that brings together individuals, informal groups and organisations committed to combat inequality in football. Fare Network is an exemplary organisation within football, that aims to tackle discrimination and that has the SDGs built into its core business. Grace also is a member of the RBFA Youth Council, a mechanism created by the RBFA to empower youth and to give them a voice. A voice that they appreciate getting and where we, as the RBFA, see that many good things can result from providing them this platform. They use the sport as a means for social development. She also discussed her role in the Youth Council of the KBVB, where she wants to serve as a sounding board for the youth in the football world.
Secondly, Nand De Klerck, Policy Officer at Voetbal Vlaanderen, spoke about their PlayGreen Project. PlaGreen is a European project that aims to make sports events more climate-friendly. Voetbal Vlaanderen aims at contributing to the initiatives to fight climate change and to the SDGs by making grassroots sports events ‘greener’. The main focus of the project is SDG 13 and linking with 3 and 12. One of the outputs of the projects was the creation of an excel file called the Green Tool, where you can compute your carbon footprint, see where you can improve and get specific action points to improve that carbon footprint in other events. This tool is available on the website of Voetbal Vlaanderen and we would encourage everyone to have a look if they are in doubt whether their events are green enough and/or how you can make them greener. In addition, Voetbal Vlaanderen will also develop a guide for clubs on how to become more green, more sustainable. A compelling project with interesting intellectual outputs.
The third speaker at the SDG Sport Café was Audrey Demoustier, Coordinator Development Women's Football at the RBFA, who shared the project Playmakers, the first major grassroots football programme dedicated to girls who want to learn to play football. The Playmakers programme allows each participant to discover the game for the first through the magic of Disney. They use Disney stories, play scenes from different cartoons and let the girls play the roles of the fantastic Disney characters. The programme is based on research conducted by the University of Leeds Beckett and aims to contribute to UEFA’s goal of doubling the participation of girls in football by 2024. But even with a great project like this, we need to continue to remove the barriers, such as cultural and social norms, for the participation of girls in football. A combination of fundamental movement skills, life skills and football basics are offered through this beautiful project. The world is at their feet.
Lastly in the SDG Café, Erneszt Kovacs from ACR+ shared his project on sustainability. A project that aims to demonstrate the feasibility, effectiveness, and cost-efficiency of good practices in governance and operations. When it comes to tips and tricks, I took away that:
In order to have a football entity working independently on environmental performance improvements, its management and governing board should look into enhancing staff skills and knowledge of environmental processes and management in general.
Success is achieved when bringing together all relevant stakeholders.
Desk research can result in finding one of many available technology providers, be it for reusable drinking cups, seats made of recycled plastic, food collection, energy production.
When replicating or defining new pilot tests, football entities should run a simple, short, yet important survey on social acceptance.
In the second part of the conference, a workshop was organised on how each individual can implement the SDGs in their own organisation. This workshop was created and hosted by Jan Beyne and Sara Vermeulen from Route 2030, a consultancy in sustainability and change management. In 7 steps, an organisation can contribute to the SDGs in a very tangible way. Small groups were used to discover and reflect on what is already being done in the participants organisation, but also what could be improved. A good takeaway from the workshop was: use the holistic view of the SDGs to see links, find new opportunities and innovate in terms of sustainability. But also, do not forget to talk to your stakeholders and try to understand each other’s strategy and see where you can strengthen each other. Eventually you will define your SDG priorities, including SMART goals, and develop a way forward. The focus should lie in framing it well and making it achievable so you can implement clear actions. If you then measure your impact, you will get far!
Seven easy steps to start working with the SDGs in your organization:
1) Build a sustainability team
2) Map what you are doing and develop your mission/vision
3) Formulate SDG translations or inside-out themes
4) Engage your stakeholders and find your prior SDGs: look at internal and external stakeholders and define who they are.
5) Formulate ambitions and SMART Goals for every priority
6) Brainstorm for actions to achieve your goals
7) Measure your impact 8) Tell your story! Internal and external comms
Workshop on implementing the Sustainable Development Goals in your club, organisation, or federation: an interesting and unique workshop in the world of SDGs.
“The process of dialogue is at least as important as the result when working with SDGs, generating support from both internal and external stakeholders is a task that should not be underestimated”
– Sara Vermeulen, Route 2030
Closing Words Sustainability or CSR initiatives are often implemented on an ad hoc basis by several people side by side, without a systematic approach and without a process of continuous improvement. As a result, various opportunities and synergy effects are lost. The SDGs provide a solid framework to work in, help you focus your actions and as a result will provide a positive return or even reveal interesting undiscovered opportunities. It is recommended that every organisation also looks at the sub-targets of each SDG. Each SDG can have a different meaning, specific to your own organisation. The sub- targets tell you how the United Nations frame the SDGs.
In essence, what we tried to do today is to make the SDGs tangible to a level where everyone can understand them and gets a better picture of the framework it can provide. However, setting up your strategy and defining the pathw
ay for your way of working with the SDGs needs to be done thoroughly and it is better to invest time on it at the start. After that it becomes easier, and you will enjoy working on them and feel even more proud of every achievement to use sports for the greater good.
For more information about the sustainability strategy of the RBFA or SDGs in sport in general, please contact us!