The UEFA Super Cup final between Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham Hotspur is set to kick off at Udinese’s Blu Energy Stadium. Notably, Blu Energy Stadium is an energy-self-sufficient sustainable football stadium, and camel.live specially interviewed Udinese’s commercial director Magda Pozzo to introduce this venue.
When PSG and Tottenham meet in Wednesday’s UEFA Super Cup, all eyes will be on the action on the pitch. However, off the pitch, something remarkable has already been unfolding quietly.
The stadium hosting the clash between the Champions League and Europa League winners may seem unremarkable at first glance, but Udinese’s Blu Energy Stadium lies at the heart of a project that combines football with environmental sustainability.
Before the match begins on Wednesday evening, as drones transmit aerial footage to TV screens, it will be hard to ignore the solar panels installed on the stadium’s roof. There are 2,409 panels in total, generating over 1,000 megawatt-hours of energy annually. This is more than enough to make the stadium— which consumes approximately 770 MWh of energy each year—completely self-sufficient.
It is powered entirely by renewable energy rather than natural gas from fossil fuels.
The project will reduce costs for the Serie A club, but for their senior commercial director Magda Pozzo, more importantly, it will enhance environmental sustainability by reducing carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 6,500 tonnes per year. This is equivalent to removing 1,516 cars from the road annually or offsetting the annual electricity usage of 1,355 households.
“Football has a unique reach, with over 2 billion followers worldwide, so why not promote messages of sustainability on a platform with such enormous influence and audience?” Pozzo told The Athletic.
Covering 4,615 square meters, the stadium’s solar park project has fostered a culture of sustainability that permeates from the club’s leadership to the community. Pozzo is acutely aware of the importance of sustainability amid the ongoing threat of human-induced climate crisis to global sports, and she is determined to drive change.
Pozzo is a member of the European Club Association (ECA) Sustainability Committee and represented Udinese at the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, last November. It marked football’s first participation in such an event, and Udinese became a founding member of the “Football Club Climate Alliance”—a group of 11 clubs including Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, and Atlético Madrid.
She stated that her focus on sustainability became more prominent a decade ago. “I was attending forums in the fashion industry, where they had already started using sustainable materials,” she said. Today, the club’s jerseys are made entirely from recycled polyester, and for every away jersey sold this season, three trees are planted.
All these efforts are commendable, but the most impactful is the solar panel project.
Udinese has partnered with Blu Energy for four years, and it is this energy company— which has supplied renewable electricity to the club in recent years—that funded the project.
“This is an important example of how we must take things step by step,” Pozzo said. “We started with a partnership, and now we have a solar park. We face issues of greenwashing, but that’s not our intention. We’ve become more sustainable through our partners.”
She views it as a “social mission,” believing that “football needs to be a source of inspiration for future generations.” Her hope is that over time, the solar park project will expand to the stadium’s parking lot to further generate renewable energy.
Udinese sees the UEFA Super Cup as an excellent opportunity to inspire and influence others. While they are not the first club to place sustainability at the core, even simple measures like having players and staff pre-order meals via a food app one day in advance to reduce waste set them apart.
They claim to be Italy’s most sustainable club and the fourth most sustainable globally, and they appear to be doing more than just paying lip service—unlike some clubs that might be accused of greenwashing. “Management, staff, players, and supporters all back our mission and vision,” Pozzo said.
Greenwashing is highly controversial; some clubs sometimes hide behind worthless carbon credits or emission offsets, claiming to be climate leaders rather than seeking tangible ways to reduce emissions.
The team’s use of private jets for travel has become a particularly frustrating issue, and while Udinese has strong environmental credentials in other areas, they are no exception. However, Pozzo says she is working to change this too. She describes it as a “systemic problem, not a club problem,” noting that poor transport links in northeastern Italy pose barriers to sustainable travel.
“We travel by bus most of the time and are trying to purchase low-emission team buses,” she explained. “But a 14-hour bus journey is impossible. We’re working to improve this and push authorities to act more sensibly, such as upgrading train services.”
Unfortunately, the operation of the solar park project is still in the regulatory approval process. The solar panels have been installed since April this year, and while final official approval is imminent, they will not be connected to the grid to generate actual electricity during Wednesday evening’s headline fixture.
They are expected to come into use for the club’s Serie A home opener against Hellas Verona on August 25 and be fully operational by the end of this year.
The project also includes a social component, with an estimated surplus of energy—around 30%—to be allocated to the local community. Additionally, summer camps encouraging children to raise environmental awareness have been successful, receiving positive feedback from parents.
“This is just the first step,” Pozzo added. “It’s crucial to embed this into every aspect of our identity—whether it’s management, fans, players, or the entire club—otherwise, you can’t convey the message.
“You can deliver the message personally like I do, but it won’t work if you can’t implement it consistently across the organization. We’re a mid-sized team, but we can deliver the message with a moderate level of influence.”
The solar park marks the expansion of Udinese’s sustainability goals, but Pozzo knows that their aspirations can only be achieved by deeply embedding their overall strategy into the club’s culture.
Only then can showcasing their efforts on the global stage potentially drive broader and lasting change.
