Hello! Thanks for visiting my blog yet again! Previously, I discussed football pitches and their impacts on water consumption. Hence I thought it would be relevant to talk about another important aspect of football stadiums: floodlights!
Floodlights are integral as they allow both the audiences and players to see what’s actually going on during evening games. But like any other lighting system, electricity is needed to power it, and therefore produce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, a study found that a typical night game would’ve produced the equivalent of 1,840.692 kg of CO2. To help you visualise, a typical 4-room HDB would’ve needed 5 months to produce the same amount of CO2.
Now obviously the use of lighting is bad for the environment so what could we do? The first and easiest step is to scrap night games entirely. But that itself will produce a whole host of issues. First and foremost, it would’ve meant that fans from the working class are unable to spectate weekday games.
Secondly, many fans have expressed a preference for evening matches due to the supposed “better atmosphere”. In fact, out of the 10 local fans I’ve surveyed, all bar 1 of them indicated an inclination for night games. Hence due to the above 2 reasons, footballing authorities are unlikely to make the unpopular decision to schedule only daytime matches.
Apart from a fan’s perspective, one has to consider it from the player’s viewpoint. Having played ‘A’ Division football during my JC days, I can attest that 3 pm games were much more physically tiring than 5 pm games when temperatures were much cooler. A much more extreme example would be Qatar, the host for the 2022 World Cup, where daytime temperatures can be over 40℃. Playing in such temperatures would greatly increase the chances of heat injury, hence the need for games to be played at dusk.
Having established the need for evening matches and hence floodlights, energy-efficient alternatives are the next best solution to reduce carbon emissions. That’s where LED lights come into the picture, with energy consumption that’s 2 to 3 times lesser than the typical High Pressure Sodium lighting commonly used in stadiums. This would translate to lower utility cost, enticing clubs to switch to LED floodlights.
Besides, the lifespans of LED lighting systems are longer than typical ones, therefore reducing the replacement frequency of lights which will keep costs down in the long run. And while more LED lamps are needed to attain similar luminance levels as traditional lamps, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.
Southampton FC recognised this and became the first European arena to have LED floodlights. This paved the for many other clubs to follow in its footsteps, with 11 clubs having LED systems as of 2018. This demonstrates that clubs are more incline to make environmentally friendly measures if they see the economic benefits.
Do you think that LED floodlights will be the future? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
Hi Yu Xun, your blog is very cool and I definitely agree with you that LED lights are the future! It would be good to see more football clubs switch to LEDs. On the topic of night matches, would the use of floodlights at night also add to light pollution in urban areas? How else do you think football clubs can improve on this? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Hi Sarah-Ann,
Thanks for the great question! I’ve not given that much thought about it as most Premier League stadiums tend to be situated in populated venues. In fact according to the Daily Mail‘s analysis, only 6 out of the 20 arenas last season were deemed to be away from the high residential areas. So in that sense, light pollution isn’t that much of a pressing problem given the amount of light urban areas are already producing.
However, for those clubs that are away from the city centre, light pollution then becomes a cause for concern. Take the Amex Stadium, for example, home to south coast outfit Brighton and Hove Albion FC. In addition to the light produced when night fixtures were played, the management decided to leave lamps on throughout the night to stimulate the growth of pitch grass. This caused light to spill into the surroundings, which has an impact on wildlife surrounding the stadium. For instance, one resident claims that she could still hear birds chirping at 9pm, which I interpreted as the sleep cycle of wildlife being messed up. These concerns have led to residents signing a petition to stop using lamps at night.
To tackle light pollution, LED lights have once again emerged as a potential solution. A researcher looking to cut down light pollution changed the lens of LED lights to an acrylic one. This led to a 90% reduction in light pollution, a drastic reduction as compared to its original state. Hence, LED lights may not only be the solution to cutting down emissions, but it could also be the key to minimising light pollution.
Cheers
Yu Xun
Hi Yu Xun,
You’re killing this assignment, my friend.
That said, I think you might be a bit premature to jump on the LED bandwagon. I say this because you’re looking at it from one perspective, carbon emissions.
But we don’t understand the ecological and human-health consequences of LEDs well enough. This is something I’ve researched in SG (actually, I now have a paper in review), but published data from other jurisdictions suggest reasons to be concerned, although it’s just not possible to generalise the findings to many contexts yet because of the lack of research.
Let’s assume, for the moment, that LEDs have severe negative consequences on human health & wildlife (compared to HPS or other lighting technologies). In that case, if carbon is your big concern, then what do you think about solar-powered lights inside stadiums ?
I also have to respectfully challenge this “Having established the need for evening matches and hence floodlights,…” Specifically the word ‘need’. Because my definition doesn’t take into consideration sporting events at all. Let’s see what you have to say about that after the week 10 class. While I agree that playing in the day in Qatar could be deadly, FIFA world cup games have been played during the day in hot, humid climates before, including in the tropics.
All the above is said with respect. We can disagree.
jc
Hi Dr Coleman,
Thanks for offering a different insight regarding the use of LED lights and its the unintended impacts on other areas. I admit that I’d approached the topic intending to reduce carbon emissions.
Regarding FIFA Club World Cup games, yes I agree that there had been games played in the tropics before, namely Brazil in 1950 and in 2014. While the climate is more humid and hotter as compared to the climates of other hosts nations, I feel that its nothing as compared to Qatar’s climate. Taking the recent 2014 edition as an example, only 2 of the games were played in temperatures above 30 degrees Celcius, with the majority played at 20-25 degrees Celcius. In Qatar however, temperatures in June could reach 43 degrees. This exposure to heat has been attributed to several deaths in the construction of Qatar’s stadiums, something not seen in the buildup to past World Cup editions.
Although organisers have been forced to move the 2022 edition to November instead of the traditional period in June, temperatures can still be as high as 30 degrees. This makes it comparable, if not a little more extreme than the Brazil edition and I feel that playing in the evenings will help to alleviate the issue. Of course, the matter of whether there really is a need to only hold night games is subject to debate, and I look forward to week 10 class!
cool – thanks for your reply !
I guess, thinking about it now, one thing we might soon start asking ourselves is whether players can continue to safely play soccer at all as high urban temperatures and heat waves become increasingly problematic.
… which also makes me wonder if that might be a useful appeal to the public generally, or at least the portion of the public that loves watching pro outdoor sports.
I will tell you that as a skier and diver, the prospect of basically having to give up the two outdoor activities I love most is quite upsetting.