Young Foundation of Light participants join forces to Protect the Planet

Participants from Foundation of Light will join more than 120 young people representing clubs from across the Premier League and English Football League at a special Protect the Planet event on Tuesday (21 November), as part of the Premier League’s commitment to empowering young people to take positive action around climate change.

Funded by the Premier League and #iwill Fund, and delivered by the Premier League Charitable Fund through the national Premier League Kicks, Premier League Primary Stars and Premier League Inspires programmes, the event will see nine-to-13-year-olds from 25 professional football clubs come together to tackle environmental sustainability at their football clubs and in their communities.

Held at Liverpool’s Anfield stadium, the event will enable young people to take part in an exhibition of their youth social action projects devised to protect the planet, alongside a motivational panel discussion featuring inspirational role models, and workshops and skills sessions designed to support young people’s understanding of the world around them.

The Protect the Planet event has been co-designed by, and will be co-delivered with, the Premier League Charitable Fund Protect the Planet Youth Panel, a group of 14 young people aged 11 – 16 with a passion for environmental sustainability.

Foundation of Light representatives will be exhibiting their Protect the Planet project at the event as they aimed to turn their Premier League Kicks sites and areas into more sustainable environments.

This has included transforming a waste piece of ground at Delves Lane Village Hall into a sustainable garden, adding recycling bins to the centre and creating a giant chess set using the bottles collected, making a board game to promote sustainable activities, transforming an unsafe space at a local nursery into a safe playing area by upcycling equipment, and carrying out two river trips picking litter from the water via paddleboard and kayaks.

Launched in August 2022, and designed to reduce the barriers to participation in youth social action, the Protect the Planet Challenge increases young people’s knowledge and understanding about environmental sustainability and empowers them to positively influence climate change action in their local communities. More than 2,400 young people representing more than 90 professional football club community organisations from across England and Wales have taken part in the Challenge to date.

Premier League Charitable Fund Chief Executive, Ruth Shaw, said: “Environmental sustainability is of great importance to the Premier League Charitable Fund. Through the Protect the Planet Challenge young people from Premier League programmes across England and Wales have developed some brilliant ideas to drive positive environmental sustainability action in school, at home and in their communities.

“We must all play our part in this important issue, and I’m grateful to the Premier League and #iwill Fund for their support in helping our charity, and the professional football club community organisations we work with, to empower thousands of young people to take positive action on climate change.”

The Premier League became a signatory of the UN Sports for Climate Action framework in 2021 and has been working towards reducing its own emissions by 50% before 2030 and achieving net- zero emissions by 2040, in line with the 1.5 degrees global warming limit of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Together with clubs, the Premier League has been supporting fans and communities to understand the importance of environmental sustainability.  

The #iwill Fund is made possible thanks to £66 million joint investment from The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to support young people to access high quality social action.  The Premier League Charitable Fund is acting as a match funder and awarding grants to professional football club community organisations to support the Protect the Planet delivery, on behalf of the #iwill Fund.

To find out more about the Protect the Planet Challenge, please visit premierleague.com/plcf