Football fans will be able to compete for the title of the most sustainable team at the 2030 World Cup, adopting behaviors that reduce their environmental footprint, in a tournament that starts on Wednesday with the launch of the “Player 0” application.
The initiative is the result of a partnership between CEiiA – the Engineering and Development Center and the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) which is seeking the 2030 World Cup — organized by Portugal, Spain and Morocco — being the most sustainable in the history of football.
The start will be made, on Wednesday, at the QSP Summit – one of the biggest management and marketing events in Europe – when the application “Player 0” will be launched where the contributions of the fans to the carbon neutrality of their team will be recorded.
It’s a game within a game. Just like in football there is a 12th player — that is the community — ‘PLAYER 0’ is the fan who participates with their broadcasts [de carbono (CO2)] to avoid in return for looking for your choice. This is done through the platform [do CEiiA para a sustentabilidade] AYR”, CEiiA CEO, José Rui Felizardo, explained to Lusa.
This platform, he detailed, allows “reliable quantification of avoided emissions” when traveling between point A and point B within mobility routes previously defined by cities, while changing them, when they are validated, in their environmental credits.
The difference between the average value defined for that trip and the value of the emissions generated by using, for example, modes of transport such as the metro or the electric bus or combustion, and the avoided CO2 emissions, ie the fan later transfers environmental credit to his team as a way to compensate for the footprint generated.
For José Rui Felizardo, this partnership with the FPF is a “great opportunity”, due to its scale, to develop technology in Portugal, which directly and indirectly affects “four billion people”.
The objective is to foster more sustainable behaviors among those who take part, combining “rationality with passion for football and the planet”.
Assuming that the objectives set out are ambitious, the CEO of CEiiA explains that, six years from now, the impact of “Player 0” on the pursuit of the 2030 Football World Cup cannot be quantified, because this number directly depends . of the selected teams, whose countries have different environmental footprints.
Access the “app” it is only part of this “complex and very demanding process in terms of work and research” which, due to its size, will involve several other entities, namely universities and other research centres.
“PLAYER 0” will be activated at the QSP Summit, an event that starts next Tuesday, with a simulation of a world championship at the AYR Neutral Arena, where all participants in this event can compete.
In this competition, the first two “PLAYER 0” jerseys in the world, offered by the FPF and authorized by the players of the Portuguese national team, will be awarded.
Located in Matosinhos, in the Porto area, CEiiA is an engineering and product development center in sectors such as mobility, aviation and space.
In the field of mobility, he designed and developed the AYR sustainability platform — which integrates “Player 0” — which quantifies, validates and values avoided emissions, and allows their transaction with environmental credits.
Recognized by numerous national and international awards, this platform is interoperable and integrable with other mobility and sustainability platforms, as well as mobility modes such as cars, bicycles and public transport, among others.