Forest Green Rovers, the First UN-Certified Climate Neutral Football Club, Win a UN Climate Award

Forest Green Rovers, the world's first vegan football club, has been named the "greenest football club in the world" after picking up a United Nations Momentum for Change climate action award. The League Two side from Nailsworth, Gloucestershire is one of only 15 organizations worldwide to receive one this year.

It comes two months after Rovers became the first football club certified carbon neutral under the UN's Climate Neutral Now scheme, which asks members to measure their emissions, cut them as far as they can and offset the rest. Even FIFA has described them as the world's greenest football club.

Chairman Dale Vince, who founded the green energy firm Ecotricity, collected the award at a ceremony in New York on Thursday night.

Plenty of people doubted we could make this improbable combination of a football club and the environment work, but it's proven to be a powerful combination.

The list of changes is long. The ground runs on renewable energy, with solar panels on the stadium roofs. The organic pitch is watered with collected rainwater and cut by a solar-powered robot mower using GPS, and waste cooking oil is turned into biofuel.

The food is where it started. Vince took over in 2010 and banned red meat for the players straight away. By 2015 the club had gone fully vegan, and The Vegan Society has since given its menu a trademark. Players, staff and fans are all served plant-based food on matchdays, and several of the players say they eat vegan at home too. "Football clubs can influence society to create change," Vince has said. "And to do that, they've got to set a good example."

The environmental case for eating plants keeps getting stronger. Oxford researchers found that a global switch to vegan diets could cut food emissions by 66% and save 8 million lives, and MEPs have called for Europe to move to plant-based diets. In football, Manchester United's Chris Smalling went fully vegan this summer.

Fewer pies, more trophies. Powered by plants.