Champions Innovate makes positive impact on London
Friday, May 31, 2024
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Final start-up showcase event presented three sustainable solutions to leave a positive impact after the UEFA Champions League final.
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After months of hard work to find ways to make the UEFA Champions League final more sustainable, the three Champions Innovate finalist start-ups – Pavegen, My Emissions and Pledgeball – presented their innovative pilot projects to a judging panel at a showcase event at London City Hall two days before the 2024 UEFA Champions League final.
What is Champions Innovate?
Champions Innovate is a groundbreaking initiative that takes place in the months leading up to the men's Champions League final and brings together UEFA, commercial partners, the host city and start-up companies. Each season, the start-ups are tasked with finding innovative solutions to specific challenges set by the host city.
For the 2024 final at Wembley Stadium, the Greater London Authority proposed three challenges, each with the goal of enhancing the competition's social and environmental impact.
Three startups – Pavegen, My Emissions and Pledgeball – were chosen to develop pilot projects responding to the challenges. Each was teamed up with one of three Champions League sponsors – Rockstar Energy Drink (PepsiCo), Just Eat Takeaway.com and Mastercard.
The three start-ups
Fan Engagement and Sustainable Behaviour Challenge
- Start-up: Pledgeball
- Partner: Mastercard
- Area of expertise: Tackling climate change through collective action
Mastercard and Pledgeball developed the Champions Innovate Pledge League, an online platform engaging football fans to pledge actionable steps towards addressing climate change in the context of the UEFA Champions League Final.
“We all have a role to play with the climate but don’t realise it. Take action and let it filter out to the people around you.”
Sustainable Food Challenge
- Start-up: My Emissions
- Partner: Just Eat Takeaway.com
- Area of expertise: Carbon labelling
Just Eat Takeaway.com and My Emissions teamed up to conduct carbon assessments and labelling of the food menus served onsite at the Champions Festival food trucks, at concession points and hospitality areas at Wembley Stadium during the UEFA Champions League final, to deliver sustainable food choices for football fans.
“Just 3,000 people choosing a chicken burger over a beef burger at Saturday’s final would power Wembley Stadium for 90 minutes.”
Green Energy Challenge
- Start-up: Pavegen
- Partner: Rockstar Energy Drink (PepsiCo)
- Area of expertise: Smart flooring technology
Rockstar Energy Drink (PepsiCo) and Pavegen collaborated on deploying an energy-generating kinetic dance floor at the Champions League Festival in Trafalgar Square. This interactive feature converts attendees into active participants, as the energy they generate will help power both the microphone and DJ booth at the Friday Night Show tonight (31 May).
“Innovation means challenging the status quo, being disruptive and doing things differently.”
Winning project
The judging panel of Laura Citron, London & Partners CEO; Nicole Valentinuzzi, Greater London Authority's assistant director of external relations; and Andrea Traverso, UEFA director of financial sustainability and research, used four criteria to determine the winning project:
- Innovation
- Collaboration
- Impact
- Scalability
Ultimately, the panel selected My Emissions as the inaugural Champions Innovate winner.
“The journey we’ve been on has been absolutely incredible. All the projects have shown how to bring solutions to football, the largest sport in the world. We’re incredibly excited and proud, but we couldn’t be here without the team at JustEat.”
Despite My Emissions being selected as the winner, all three finalists will continue their projects, highlighting the success of the Champions Innovate initiative.
Future Champions Innovate campaigns
After the success of the inaugural 2024 UEFA Champions League final Champions Innovate campaign, the initiative will continue for the 2025 final in Munich, with the theme of physical activity.
UEFA is committed to using football to make a positive impact on global sustainability issues. Champions Innovate complements our wider efforts to identify innovative and sustainability-focused solutions across the football ecosystem, aligned with our dedicated environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy.
What other sustainability initiatives are happening at the 2024 UEFA Champions League final?
The UEFA Champions Festival, a four-day family-friendly celebration for people of all ages featuring football-related entertainment, live music, giveaways, activations from UEFA Champions League sponsors and much more, is taking place in central London from Thursday 30 May to Sunday 2 June. The festival is being held at five locations across the English capital: Potters Fields Park, Regent Street, Somerset House, South Bank and Trafalgar Square.
Various UEFA social and environmental sustainability programmes and sponsor activations are being held throughout the festival’s four days, including wheelchair football and blind football demonstrations with UEFA Champions League legends Cafu and Kaká.