'A big journey for us' - Liverpool look to sustainable futurepublished at 17:38 22 April
Nicola Pearson
BBC Sport journalist
Image source, Getty Images"Make a difference together."
That is what Liverpool want to be able to do with their supporters when it comes to sustainability.
The impact of climate change is being felt in many different ways and football is not immune to these.
While so much of fans' focus is on what is happening on the pitch, there is an increasing expectation from supporters that clubs should be doing more to reduce their impact off it.
In the second part of our Earth Day chat with Rishi Jain, Liverpool's director of impact highlighted how important the relationship with fans is for the club's The Red Way sustainability programme.
"We want to be able to say to supporters that we're involved in 'x project' and to come and take part," he said. "Come and support it. Lead with us, and then we'll really make a difference together.
"We are tracking ahead in our target for awareness and that is helped through the continued support of LFC Foundation and the work they do through their engagement events."
It is through this work that they have acquired fan support and managed to hit key milestones in the programme.
"It sounds very simple - with supporters putting plastic bottles into the right bins - but we have seen matchday recycling rates increase from 25% in 2021 to nearly 99% now, which is just brilliant," Jain explained.
"That's a really simple thing about asking supporters to change their behaviours. We've been on a journey with them. When we've put the message out, we've talked about the collective achievement. It's not been the club that has done this - it's with the help of our supporters that we've achieved this together.
"It's ultimately allowed us to collect 1,000,000 plastic bottles over a three-year period, which is just a huge number.
"We're all very superstitious, but we know that putting things in the right bin has actually become part of the intrinsic matchday routine and it's a nice thing for us to be able to talk about with them."
Despite the progress made in the four years of The Red Way, Liverpool are determined not to stop.
"Could we do more? Absolutely," Jain added. "It's a big journey for us.
"I'm never going to sit there and just say: 'We've done a great job'. It's always: 'Yes, we've done good work, but this is the next goal'. We have ambitious targets.
"You can't sit there and go into these these rooms [such as COP] and say, 'we feel we're doing really well, but there's more to do' if you're not actually delivering that at home.
"We've got some key focus areas that we're really going to ramp up our efforts for."
