Brentford FC has been named the most sustainable Premier League team by the Fair Game Index.
The club was the only top flight team to make the top ten of the Fair Game Index sustainability report, which looks at the way UK football clubs are run across the top four professional football divisions.
League two club AFC Wimbledon came top of the ranking, while the Premier League’s Nottingham Forest scored the lowest across all pillars. League one team Carlisle came second, with Cambridge United taking third place.
The Fair Game Index looks at all 92 clubs who were in the Premier League and the English Football League last season, rating the performance of each on a weighted scoring system based on financial sustainability, governance, fan engagement and equality standards.
Premier League clubs typically had higher scores, with revenue playing a key factor in financial sustainability. They also typically saw the lowest scores for fan engagement.
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Manchester United was named best Premier League club for financial sustainability, while Leeds United led the way on equality standards and Leicester City taking the top spot for governance. Brentford and Everton took joint top spot for fan engagement.
Outside of the Premier League, Cambridge came top on governance, while Lincoln led the way on equality standards and Exeter came first on fan engagement. Plymouth Argyle was named best for financial sustainability, scoring 40 out of 40.
Fair Game believes performance against these key sustainability criteria should determine how broadcast revenue is allocated between the clubs. This is currently approximately 12% of the Premier League’s annual television income.
Elsewhere, the English Football Association (FA) recently launched a five-year sustainability strategy to achieve net zero by 2040.
The new strategy will see the FA working towards having operational control across all three scopes and to reduce CO2 emissions 50% by 2030, condense electricity consumption by 30% by 2028 and decrease gas consumption by 20% by 2028 (all from a 2019 baseline).
