Sky and the Premier League join forces in the fight against single-use plastic

• Ground-breaking partnership to encourage clubs and fans to #PassonPlastic

• Sky and the Premier League to provide expert advice to help clubs go single-use plastic free

• Launching schools resources to educate and inspire young fans

Sky and the Premier League have today announced a significant new partnership that will aim to raise awareness of the environmental issues caused by single-use plastic and inspire Premier League Clubs and fans to go single-use plastic free.

The Premier League will lead by example joining Sky to reduce their single-use plastic usage. This means that they will work to remove single-use plastic from their own operations and supply chains in the next two years. Premier League Clubs will be encouraged to follow this lead, with the Premier League and Sky providing support and guidance on how clubs can phase out single-use plastic from their stadiums and operations.

In addition, the Clubs will be supported by the Sky Ocean Rescue Ninjas, a team of consultants who are dedicated to helping businesses reduce their single-use plastic output. Drawing upon learnings from Sky’s own experience reducing plastic within the business they will identify where single-use plastic is used across all operations and suggest alternatives.

Tottenham Hotspur is one of the first clubs to declare its commitment to phasing out single-use plastics with the help of its new state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly stadium, which is due to open next season. The club has pledged to get rid of single-use plastics including, plastic straws, stirrers, cutlery and its retail outlets will no longer offer 5p plastic bags.

Together, all of this means that single-use plastics at Premier League matches could one day be a thing of the past.

Inspiring younger generations

Through this partnership, Sky and the Premier League are also using their combined reach and experience to inspire young fans. Working together they have created a number of fun and interactive education programmes that will highlight the importance of making simple everyday changes to help protect our oceans.

For younger children, the Premier League Primary Stars programme will offer a new classroom experience, focused on oceans and single-use plastic, developed by Sky Ocean Rescue. Already in over 15,000 primary schools in England and Wales, the programme will offer a specially trained Premier League coach to give young fans the chance to work together on solutions to reduce the amount of single use plastic in their lives as well as encouraging their friends and parents to join in.

Barney Francis, Managing Director, Sky Sports, said: “Sky Ocean Rescue has been running for just over a year and we are proud of the momentum we have created. We’ve already reached millions of people, inspiring them to make simple everyday changes to help save our oceans. Football has a unique ability to reach billions across the world and I’m delighted that the Premier League, and its clubs are getting involved to further build on our campaign. Today we’re calling on football fans to make a simple change and join us to help stop our oceans drowning in plastic

Richard Scudamore, Executive Chairman, Premier League, added: “We are extremely proud to be joining Sky Ocean Rescue in the fight to save our oceans. As an organisation with a global audience we, and our clubs, are able to encourage people around the world to think and take positive action to reduce their use of plastic.”

Daniel Levy, Chairman, Tottenham Hotspur, said: “We are dedicated to minimising the environmental impacts of our activities and are committed to playing our part in reducing single-use plastics across our club operations. We shall be encouraging our suppliers, partners and supporters to help us to phase out their use altogether. This is a worldwide problem so we are delighted to see the announcement of this partnership between two other high-profile organisations to further raise awareness and can continue to drive home this message to an even bigger audience.”

This partnership is the first of its kind and with the help of the Sky Ocean Rescue Ninjas, Sky will look to work with more partners to help address the impact that single-use plastic is having on the ocean.

Fans will be able to hear even more about this on Sky’s Monday Night Football coverage of Tottenham Hotspur versus Watford. This will include a takeover of Wembley and an appearance by Plasticus, the famous Sky Ocean Rescue whale, made from 250 kilograms of recycled single-use plastic, the same amount dumped in our oceans every minute.