The “greenest team in the world” will build the UK’s first all-timber stadium after Forest Green Rovers FC – currently competing in the fifth division of English Football – was given the green light to construct the world’s first “climate-positive” football pitch.
Described by FIFA as the “greenest football club on earth,” after players started wearing kits made of recycled plastic and coffee grounds and the club introduced a vegan-only menu at games, the football club—which will build a 5,000-seater stadium out of mass timber—has already been recognised by the UN as the world’s first carbon-neutral sporting club.
Addressing the Stroud District Council in Gloucestershire, Colin Peake, a Forest Green Rovers life club member, said the development—which will see the current ground demolished and converted into sustainable housing—has been 20 years in the making.
“Whether you’re a devotee of the game or not, very few can argue that the club has brought the world to your doorstep with what we have witnessed over the last few years,” Mr Peake, also the football club’s Managing Director, told the council meeting yesterday.
“From small acorns, oak trees grow. And while I cannot guarantee the small acorn of Newton Heath, which became Manchester United, will likely happen (here) at Junction 13, I know the late Trevor Horsley and I dreamt of where Forest Green Rovers could aspire to reach.”
Forest Green Rovers is owned by Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity—one of the UK’s largest renewable energy suppliers—and regarded by the UN as one of its ‘climate champions’. A high school dropout (at 15), he is now one of the UK’s largest political donors, having donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the UK Labor Party and Greens Party.
The new stadium can be expanded to 10,000 seats with a second stage
Mr Vince plans to incorporate the stadium into a much larger Eco Park, which would bring 4,000 additional green tech jobs to the region and boost biodiversity by 20% compared to today’s farming background levels.
“Most people think when you’re building something, you’re harming nature, but it doesn’t have to be that way, and we will prove that when we build this. And in our studies, we’ve proven on the desktop, and we’ll prove it in the real world when we get the chance.”
The new plans will have a “distinct appearance” due to the stadium’s roofscape. It aims to retain the site’s rural setting and attributes while integrating the new stadium for Forest Green Rovers as a focal point for the club and the wider community: “We’ve been clear for probably 10 years; our goal is to get to the Championship. So the new stadium is a part of that,” Mr Vince said.
“If you look at our current situation, we’re constrained regarding access, parking, power and water. On matchdays, we have problems with all of those things, and the new place is super accessible from the A419, the M5, and from all around the county. So that would help us grow our crowd as we grow as a club to be a Championship Football Club.”
Why wood? The making of a 100-million pound all-timber stadium.
Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects – founded by the late Zaha Hadid, the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, (practically) all parts of the stadium will be made from wood – from load-bearing walls to the external cladding, the grandstands and slabs: “It’s not just a formal choice but the desire to create elements usually made of steel or concrete,” the studio said, adding the world’s first stadium to use 100% sustainably sourced laminated timber “is highly durable, safe and will minimise the stadium’s embodied carbon.”
- To learn more about the stadium, click here to read more about the stadium profile on the Zaha Hadid Architects website.
