'FA Cup loss shouldn't detract from Reading's stellar climate change work'

05 February 2023 , 17:17

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Reading's innovative kit sets a welcome benchmark for the footballing world (Image: Paul Currie/REX/Shutterstock)

Reading football club will have been hugely disappointed to be beaten 3-1 by ­Manchester United last weekend.

But their FA Cup fourth round clash, televised live on ITV4, should be celebrated for getting the football world talking about the climate crisis.

Known as climate stripes, this season’s Royals’ kit, made from 100% recycled plastic bottles, now has red and blue stripes on the sleeves.

They were the brainchild of professor Ed Hawkins from the University of Reading who realised that climate change can be an abstract concept, one that’s often difficult to communicate and that science jargon can get in the way of the message.

He started by looking for a simple way to illustrate how the world has grown warmer over the last 150 years, so it was instantly understood without words, numbers or graphs.

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Each stripe represents the average temperature for a single year. Shades of blue indicate cooler-than-average years, while red shows years that were hotter.

Reading are rightly being praised for starting the climate change conversation in football (Martin Rickett/PA Wire)

Ahead of the match, Prof Hawkins also created new warming stripes exclusive to the city of Manchester to show that it used to be blue, but is now red. He added: “Although this might sound good to United fans, it’s nothing to cheer about. The band of deep red stripes show how the city’s climate has heated up over recent years.

“Like all areas of society, football needs to cut its carbon footprint to net-zero. That means we need the stars on the pitch and the fans in the stands to all play their part.

“The first step is to understand the problem, which is why we want to start conversations. If you think how hot 2022 was, and then realise that those 12 months will likely be one of the coolest years of the rest of our lives, I think we will regret not having acted sooner on these warnings.”

Striped images for more than 200 countries, states and cities are available to download for free from ShowYourStripes.info.

So far millions have downloaded graphics from the site and they have been shared by the United Nations.

They have also been used as the cover of The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg, on the main stages at the Glastonbury and Reading Festivals, as well as being featuring on the catwalks at London Fashion Week in 2021.

Nada Farhoud