Afcdiamonds.com caught up with Mark Neveu, Chief Commercial Officer of our Main Club Sponsors Rebel Energy, to learn more about them and their plans for the future.
The Club wishes to thank Rebel Energy once again for their amazing support over the last 9 months.
Please tell us all more about Rebel Energy?
In very simple terms, we are a utility company that supplies green electricity and gas to homes in the UK but there’s a lot more to us than that. We have a social mission focused around raising awareness of fuel poverty and engaging with vulnerable people to support them during difficult times. Alongside this, we are focused on our environment and we invest in decarbonisation projects through our charity, Rebel Restoration. We want to identify long term solutions in these two areas rather than just offering quick fixes.
We have been around for 3 years but due to the energy crisis, we only really started actively supplying customers in April 2022. In this short time, nearly 30,000 households have joined us which has enabled us to grow our employee base to 20, half of which are based at our Bedford office.
Our plan is to continue to grow at pace and positively influence people’s lives and our planet at the same time.
So can our fans switch their gas and electricity to Rebel Energy?
Yes, we supply electricity and gas to all of the mainland UK. We are currently finalising a dedicated web page for Diamonds fans to use to obtain an energy quote from us. It will be simple to switch – fill in a few details and you’ll be on your way to becoming a “Rebel with a cause”. Not only will you get great customer service and being supplied by green energy, but we will also donate £50 to AFC Rushden & Diamonds to support the Club in climbing back up the leagues. Watch this space for the formal launch over the next week or so.
What are the future plans for the business?
We will always look to offer people a fair price for our energy, we want to continue to be a sustainable business, so we believe in managed growth rather than growth at all costs as we’ve seen a number of energy companies go out of business recently due to the sole focus being on getting customers through the door.
We are growing our product range so along with domestic energy we will soon be offering business energy, broadband, a homecare product as well as solar, battery and heat pump solutions.
We invest a lot in automation and technology so that we can offer a hassle free experience for our customers and engage with them through their preferred communication channels.
What attracted Rebel to sponsoring the Club and how did this come about?
This came about for a couple of reasons, our founder and CEO, Dan Bates, was born in the area and his dad still lives there plus our Head of Finance, Neil Corbyn, is a massive Diamonds fan so approached us last season when there was a bit of a challenge financially. After talking to Neil and Alex about the Club and the plans that there are in place it, sounded like a really exciting opportunity to actually make a difference at a club that truly has a community focus.
I took my son to the Community Day match against Leiston last season and got such a positive feel for the place. I was struck by how much love was felt for the Club by the fans and staff which firmed up our commitment and encouraged us to supporting AFC Rushden & Diamonds for this season and hopefully beyond.
I understand there is a charitable arm of Rebel, can you tell us more?
Yes, we have a charity called Rebel Restoration which is focussed on decarbonisation projects. We aren’t big fans of the current carbon credits market as it’s just people making money from what is essentially greenwashing. The charity is all about impact so investment in seagrass and peatland projects are at the centre of the work as they have a far bigger positive impact than planting trees. We know that there are lots of different ways to positively affect the environment so we will always invest in a number of different types of projects but ultimately it comes back to impact.
Any predictions for the First Team this season?
It’s a tough league and its clearly been a tough start but we are backing the team to start climbing up the table very soon.
It’s great that we’ve retained some of the young players who excelled at the end of last season and in Chris Nunn we’ve got a manager who knows this level of football.
We’re really excited to see where this partnership can go and we can’t wait to climb the leagues in the coming years with Rebel on the front of the shirts.
Come on you Diamonds!!!!
