E.ON, one of the
The offer will provide coach travel for fans at each of the 32 away Third Round fixtures in order to reduce the environmental impact of The FA Cup. By logging onto www.carbonfootyprint.com, fans can pledge leave their car at home and travel by coach for free.
With United traveling away in the Third Round, they could save nearly 4000kg of CO2, the equivalent of powering a TV for nearly 25,000 hours if they take the free coach for their trips.
Meanwhile,
With fans expected to clock up over 8,000 miles in total traveling to games over the Third Round weekend, fans are being encouraged to do their bit. Going by coach is the most environmentally friendly form of transport, emitting just 29g of CO2 on a per passenger kilometre basis (gCO2/pass.km) compared to trains and cars. If just one coach is filled with fans at every game rather than traveling by car, over 56 tonnes of CO2 would be saved, the equivalent to boiling over 1million kettles for your half time cuppa1.
The partnership with National Express will run across every round of The FA Cup through to The Final in May. By encouraging fans to travel to matches together in a coach, rather than driving in a car, fans can make a significant difference to competition's carbon emissions.
Mike Thompson, Head of Sponsorship & Events at E.ON said:
"With thousands of fans traveling to FA Cup games every round, it is no surprise that travel has the biggest environmental impact. By providing free coaches to away games this round and for every round until The Final, we hope that fans will travel to the game together rather than by car, and reduce their carbon footprint. The initiative with National Express is a great way of communicating some of the easy steps fans can take to help make this season's FA Cup carbon neutral."
"We are delighted to be working with E.ON to make it easier for football fans to reduce their carbon foot print when travelling to support their team during the FA Cup. In 2006 nearly 300,000 tonnes of CO2 were saved from entering the atmosphere by people using the National Express instead of the car, and this brilliant campaign will help people understand that changing travel habits from cars to public transport is the single best way they can help the environment".
The free coach travel offer forms part of E.ON's Carbonfootyprint.com campaign, which aims to offset the 45,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide produced by The FA Cup in order to make the competition carbon neutral2. Carbon emissions are calculated for every match in every round of The FA Cup (including replays) and include the operational emissions from all participating clubs, the television emissions from viewers watching matches at home and the travel emissions produced by home and away fans.
By logging onto www.carbonfootyprint.com, football fans can also find out about car sharing schemes in their area and choose from over 30 different energy saving pledges, such as fitting energy efficient light bulbs, walking to a game or watching the match together at a pub with friends.
The Carbonfootyprint.com campaign follows the success of 'Save Your Energy for the Blues' an initiative run by E.ON in conjunction with Ipswich Town Football Club last season, which saw fans make over 14,000 carbon saving pledges to make the Blues the country's first ever carbon neutral football club.