All England Club force for good sustainability journey

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Tom Yearley is relatively new to this sports sector game (tennis). As he says, “I have been in higher education for maybe the last 15 years.”

He is the Head of Energy and Environment at the All England Lawn Tennis Club (Wimbledon) (UK) and is responsible for decarbonizing the venue operations and advancing nature and resource stewardship across the Championships estate.

In a discourse with ‘Coliseum’, Tom Yearley, Head of Energy and Environment, AELTC (Wimbledon), UK, affirms that what makes Wimbledon unique apart from being the world’s premier lawn tennis championship, “We have also got a longstanding and unstoried history in sustainability. And I think for Wimbledon strategy is essential to everything that we do. We are a guardian of tennis. We also want to be a force for good.”
 

AELTC

The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC), also known as the All England Club, is a private members’ club based at Church Road in the Wimbledon area of London, England (UK). It is best known as the venue for the Wimbledon Championships, the only Grand Slam tennis event still held on grass.

The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC) aims for net-zero operational emissions by 2030 thus driving a multipillar sustainability journey focused on climate action, circularity and nature restoration.
 

Understanding the ‘Why’

Tom Yearley underlined that what he has learnt in his career through sustainability is that everything exists – “All the technology is out there, all the soul-searching about how to decarbonize the supply chain and how to decarbonize the operations is out there and it is just someone somewhere has to figure it out. We also know what we need to do to protect our wildlife. It is just a case of finding that trigger to bring our colleagues, our peers, our fans along the journey to understand the ‘why’ and looking at the fact.”
 

Force for Good

He also underlined it is important to understand what sits at the core of the organization.

“I think being part of tennis in an English country garden (where the AELTC sits) gives us opportunity to think about being a force for good. Working along the values trying to make the event accessible. We are maintaining low ticket prices at the gates to enable the community to come and see our tennis help support the point of being a force for good. But, I think, central to all of this is being at the pinnacle of sport and it took me a little while when I started working at the organization to go beyond the pinnacle of tennis and realize that it was really a lot of our lessons that we learnt are replicable across the board and across sports.”
 

Overarching Principles and Strategies

He talked about the overarching principles and strategies and the objectives at the All England Club.

“My job really is to boil that down and figure out what strategic delivery or operational delivery is going to look like from a sustainability standpoint. What we need to do is figure out which ones are applicable to us and then how we persuade everyone that they are good idea to deliver. So, first and foremost, the net zero emissions and for us this is all about net zero in operations, Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Well, we burn out an incredible amount of gas. At the moment we need to remove it. We need to find out ways to remove fossil fuel sources from our buildings. Maybe in a year’s time I can tell you about all of our grand plans to deliver zero carbon operations Championships through the implementation of ground source heat pumps, SOC pumps and heat recovery.”
 

Nature-Positive

Yearley pointed out that everything is not about humans and we need to be considerate and aware of the nature that we share our spaces with.

“I think we are very fortunate at the All-England Club to sit in what is essentially an English country park and to have that perception of nature really thrust upon us on a daily basis. Looking after nature and being nature-positive is super important.”
 

Challenges

He further pointed out that sitting in a park also comes with its set of challenges like birds nesting on top of the pollarding trees and “we can’t do anything about that”.
 

Resource Efficiency

Yearley underlined that looking at resource efficiency is absolutely critical – “It goes beyond energy. Your struggle to find anywhere else where you can have a nice, refreshing cold glass of Evian water except in Wimbledon. That was our persistent drive to innovate with our partners, our supply chain to ensure that our values prevail, that we can introduce resource-efficiency measures such as not having single-use plastic with all of those wonderful glasses, fresh, sparkling mineral water that we were so grateful to receive. So, again, the technology exists. The answer is around that. We just need to find the reason why. But, as I said, there is only so much we can do within our own operations.”
 

Sustainability Message

He averred that the thinking will have to be broader – “What other industry really has the reach that we have in the sports sector to be able to engage our fans, our players, our local businesses, our neighbors, and our supply chain in the sustainability message.”
 

Wrap-up

 

Environmental Sustainability Platform

Tom Yearley wrapped up by stating, “Everything to do with sports, the fandom, the passion behind attendance all comes down to emotion and my personal challenge going forward over the period I will be working in Wimbledon really link emission reduction, net positive, resource efficiency with the passion of the fans, the tennis fans and the sporting fans more widely so that we can really raise the platform that environmental sustainability sits upon and take us forward to achieve these amazing goals I am sure we all have.”

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