Photo by Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images
Liverpool are teaming up with the UK-based meat-free food provider Quorn for more vegan and vegetarian options around the club.
With the world heating up and the effects of climate change becoming obvious to all but the most willfully ignorant, all companies want to at least appear sustainable. Liverpool are no exception.
To that end, the club announced a new “Official Sustainable Protein Partner.” Quorn, based out of the UK, has provided meat-free options to KFC and Greggs.
“As a leading provider of sustainable meat-free products in the UK, Quorn will be a key partner in the club’s sustainability efforts,” Billy Hogan, Liverpool’s managing director and chief commercial officer, said in a press release. “In this case, Quorn will help us provide our supporters with more sustainable food alternatives on matchdays.
“We look forward to providing a platform to help our fans, employees and playing staff make positive contributions to tackling climate change while at the same time considering their health and wellbeing.”
According to the press release, the Quorn-provided vegan and vegetarian options will be available at Anfield for matchdays (if and when those become A Thing again), as well as for the players and staff around the training ground.
Quorn claims an impressive 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from their products as compared to beef.
For those of us keeping track of Liverpool’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), this is another positive step in the right direction in the “Reds Going Green” initiative. This news follows on from February’s announcement that the club are teaming up with another partner to reduce food waste at Anfield.
Despite these positive steps, the club could do more, and do so in a much more transparent way. If there is a long-term plan behind the “Reds Going Green” initiative, the club are keeping it under wraps.
It is common for major corporations—and increasingly small and medium enterprises—to publicly release a CSR report, either as a separate report, or together with their annual financial report. Liverpool have no such publicly available report.
In writing a CSR report, it forces key decision makers to think about potential blind spots—not just environmentally, but also within labor, diversity, etc—and the transparency makes the company more accountable, both internally and externally.
Of course, simply releasing a CSR report is not a silver bullet solution. Bad actors can still have fantastically thorough sustainability reports. But it can be a key tool in driving sustainable practices and initiatives at the corporate level.
If Liverpool have a long-term plan beyond “announcing sustainable efforts if/when we have a new green partner,” it would be nice to know about it!
