THE ARSENAL FOREST

Arsenal Football Club partnered with CarbonLink a non-profit carbon forestry company with experience in carbon offsetting projects in the UK and Africa. CarbonLink calculated that to offset the carbon production of the programme over a season we needed to plant 12,500 trees, each absorbing 20kg of CO2 over the next 10 years.

Priced at £1 per tree, we adapted the programme from ‘perfect bound’ to ‘saddle stitched’ saving £12,500, the cost required for the project, and we are now planting ‘The Arsenal Forest in Africa’ in Bore, in Kenya’s Coast Province.

Supporters can also buy trees and the Arsenal Forest is now in excess of 16,000 trees. Every supporter receives exact coordinates and a map of the location of their trees in the forest.

The scheme is hugely beneficial to the Bore community:

• 37 acres of deforested and degraded scrub has been cleared, fenced and protected.
• The trees will provide poor subsistence farmers with a valuable sustainable timber cash crop
• The propagation, planting and management of the trees employs 60 women who use the income to provide education for their children and also to set up separate businesses to increase their financial independence.
• 120 poor farmers are being supported with employment in the establishment of the plantation
• 2 full time jobs have been created for the forest caretakers
• The club support the local Bore Lions football team, supplying kit for both the team and the project workers.

The scheme – we believe a first in football globally – has attracted media interest at home and abroad. Two national TV stations in Kenya have now run features on the Arsenal Forest as has BBC Wales

The Arsenal Forest was featured in a five-page sustainability section in each programme, which also showcased staff and Junior Gunners sustainability efforts, encouraged upcycling of old programmes and highlighted other environmental projects at Arsenal.