St Mirren Football Club takes its social and community responsibilities very seriously and this includes efforts to reduce our carbon footprint and minimise our environmental impact.

We are continually looking at new ways to push environmental awareness in sport. Sustainability should be core to everything we do at St Mirren. Waste management and recycling, energy use management, along with Transport, Food and supporting Nature are key objectives for our club.

We have developed our own waste and recycling initiative #BuddieBinIt. We are one of the first senior clubs to create a waste and recycling scheme for our stadium and we encourage all fans to support our efforts.

General Waste and Mixed Recycling bins are located throughout the stadium. We ask all our supporters to contribute to the success of the scheme by disposing of their rubbish in the appropriate bins. This not only helps the environment by diverting waste from landfill, but also helps the club reduce its costs.

#BuddieBinIt is a joint initiative between the club and supporters in the SMiSA Volunteer Squad (coordinated by Jim Crawford, pictured below (far right)).

The squad was set up to allow supporters to make a positive contribution and save the club money by carrying out tasks around the ground that might otherwise have been done by contractors.

The squad are responsible for clearing litter from the stands after matches. They were also responsible, in cooperation with the club, for instigating and realising the installation of mixed recycling and general waste bins throughout the stadium and for establishing and promoting the #BuddieBinIt initiative.

St Mirren FC are looking at ways to ensure that most of the club's energy is from renewable sources. The club are also investigating alternative power sources such as solar, air source, ground source where these might be appropriate. Employees are asked to be environmentally aware and to minimise energy use by shutting down computers and switching off lights when not in use.

We are working with Zero Waste Scotland and Locogen Energy Services to measure our carbon footprint at St Mirren FC and to find ways of reducing this in the future. Our pledge to reduce the club’s carbon footprint is in line with the 5 principles of the UN Sports For Climate Action Framework.

Sport always involves a lot of travelling for both teams and supporters and so we’re always looking to reduce our impact.

We encourage walking, cycling, public transport & car sharing for getting to home games and supporters buses, public transport & car sharing for attending away games. Such travel information and advice will be shared with visiting away supporters.

The club's aim in the future is to replace the current club vehicles with electric vehicles as well as looking to instal electric charging points around the stadium with free parking initiatives for EVs on matchdays and non-matchdays.

The aim is that 100% of all matchday waste will be recycled. At present almost all cups, containers, stirrers, etc. from Kiosk Serving Areas in the stadium are now recyclable or compostable. We aim to replace single-use sachets with refillable pump dispensers. The Food Kiosks are encouraged to offer and promote more healthy options - water, fruit juice, vegan and vegetarian products.

Corporate Hospitality should aim to recycle all waste and promote and offer healthy options on its menus.

Catering at the St Mirren Training Ground should follow the same guidelines as the Stadium. 100% of waste should be recycled and single use paper and plastic cups should be discouraged.

The playing field is treated with a high environmental level of care and all our sites are given the same attention and managed to appropriate environmental standards without the use of harmful chemicals or pesticides.

Environmental awareness and progress depends on supporters, club staff and the community altering their behaviour and attitudes. It is important to involve and work with all of these groups as active partners as our environmental initiatives move forward.

Football provides us with a local and a global platform to promote sustainable and responsible behaviour and attitudes among supporters and wider communities.

Scottish football is the most supported game per capita in the whole of Europe and is broadcast to 160 countries around the world providing us with a unique opportunity to be leading advocates of climate action.

St Mirren FC is currently working in partnership with Zero Waste Scotland (the national agency helping organisations to reduce their environmental impact), Pie Sports and Enva (the club’s waste contractors) to progress our environmental initiatives.

We aim to promote our initiatives and look for opportunities to collaborate with other organisations including Renfrewshire Council, The Scottish Government, The Scottish Football Association, The Scottish Professional Football League, Friends Of The Earth (Scotland) and The Scottish Football Supporters Association.

Social and environmental activations are now at the heart of all commercial conversations. We will be adopting sustainable procurement policies working with club partners to develop improved products.