From recycling tennis balls and planting for wildlife, to making the switch to using energy-efficient floodlights, one of the county’s oldest sporting institutions, East Glos Club, is acing its journey to becoming more sustainable. Founded in the 1800s as a Cricket Club, East Glos Tennis Club has 28 tennis courts, including clay, astro, hard and grass surfaces, with 17 of them floodlit. They also have four squash courts and three padel courts.
Operations Manager Steve Wigg recognised the need for the club to do its bit for the planet back in 2021, by forming its first ever Sustainability Working Group. Fast forward three years and the club has already made huge strides towards its aim of matching Gloucestershire County Council’s ambition to be net zero by 2030, by working with The Growth Hub Gloucestershire, to identify key areas where it can become more sustainable.
The Club first engaged the support of The Growth Hub’s Business Navigators in 2022, to look at strategy, vision, marketing and sales after the Covid pandemic, along with the substantial growth of the business in recent years, which then developed into a focus on their sustainability goals. The Growth Hub also advised simple but effective changes to become more sustainable, such as recycling glass and food waste, switching off unnecessary lights, installing water-conserving taps and PIR sensors.
The Growth Hub has been excellent. Supportive, knowledgeable and able to provoke thought and discussion with our team. With an extremely comprehensive tailored spreadsheet, we’ve now successfully identified areas for improvement and will continue to work with the club committees to take it from strength to strength.
The club’s mission is to build on previous success by further developing facilities for club members and the local community; in order to encourage enjoyment, participation and sporting excellence in racket sports, in Cheltenham and the surrounding region. In 2024. its Sustainability Champions concluded numerous projects from converting seven tennis courts to LED floodlights, supporting ‘bike week’ and ‘no mow May’, to introducing wildlife friendly flower planters and a game-changing ball recycling scheme that’s recovered over 4,500 tennis and padel balls in its first year.
To read the full story, in Steve’s own words, check out his interview with SoGlos here: How The Growth Hub is helping East Glos Club to reach net zero
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