Webinar: Green Sports and Venues as Environmental Stewards

Wednesday, May 29, 1-2:30 pm
Register at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/692328314

Several prominent sports teams and not-for-profit organizations have a story to tell about why they got involved with environmental concerns at venues and the positive changes they have experienced when they track and measure these reduction. Learn about the challenges they faced during their initial assessments about understanding the A, B, C’s of environmental issues.Learn how the industry impacts our environment through simple things like our land, water and air. Learn about how these facilities have made enhancements in managing waste, conserving water, conserving energy, using carbon offsets. These organizations will share their plans to succeed before taking on these environmental challenges. Speakers will share their plans for the future environmental issues. Finally, the speakers their experience in reducing food waste and the benefits of the Food Recovery Challenge to reduce their environmental footprint, reduce production of greenhouse gases, reduce, reuse, recycle and RETHINK. Speakers will give an overview of their goals and share their lessons learned as a result of taking on the environmental challenge to reduce their environmental footprint:

• these green initiatives were done voluntarily (not because of mandates)
• environmental impact of the industry on our resources
• determine ‘where do I start’
• what can be included in assessing our environmental concerns
• how to measure reduction of ghg’s (greenhouse gases)
• how ‘green initiatives’ influence sponsorship
• how ‘green initiatives’ raise awareness of players and fans

Moderator:

Steve Fishman: Steve Fishman is a Waste Management Specialist working at the US Environmental Protection Agency. He has worked in the Solid Waste industry for over 25 years, Special Waste Representative for Laidlaw Waste, Technical Sales Manager for CETCO and Business Manager for Superior Hazardous Waste Group. Steve has a B.A. degree from UMKC, was a Certified Hazardous Manager, Past President of the Missouri Recycling Association and Past Chair of the local chapter of the Air and Waste Management Association.

Speaker(s):

Syd Mandelbaum: A scientist working to reduce poverty and hunger. After working for 20 years for genetics, DNA and anti-cancer think tanks, Syd left the hard sciences to form Rock and Wrap It Up! an anti-poverty charity. As a greening, anti-poverty think tank, RWU has launched 6 asset recovery programs which have fed over one billion who hunger. Syd is currently working with the USDA and the EPA to reduce hunger through food recovery. Syd is also consulting with Congress to open up federal agencies and military bases for asset recovery.

Joe Abernathy: Currently the Vice-President of Stadium Operations for the St. Louis Cardinals. Joe is responsible for all day-to-day building operations and game-day event management activities at Busch Stadium, including ushering, guest services, security, medical services, maintenance, clean up, grounds keeping, and parking. Joe was a member of the design team and was also responsible for the commissioning and start-up of the new Busch Stadium for the 2006 season. Joe is currently the Past-President of the Board of Directors of the Stadium Managers Association. Joe also serves on the Stadium Operations Advisory Committee for Major League Baseball and is Co-Chairman of the Sustainable Operations sub-committee. Joe is also on the Board of Directors for the Green Sports Alliance. In these roles, he is spearheading the benchmarking of sustainable operations metrics for all MLB facilities.

Brandon Hamilton: Currently the Director of Facilities for Kansas City Chiefs, Inc. Brandon is responsible for facility management at the Stadium and Training Facility, and management of the engineering, grounds keeping, maintenance, and carpentry departments. Brandon is the Committee Chair for the Chiefs Green Initiative Committee and has a significant role in the recently announced environmental stewardship program for the Chiefs, “Extra Yard for the Environment”. Brandon is a member of the Green Sports Alliance and the International Association of Venue Managers.

 

Survey of Green Initiatives Associated With College Varsity, Campus Recreation, and Club Sports Programs, Events, and Facilities

Along with AASHE, Natural Resources Defense Council, Green Sports Alliance and NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation, the University of Arizona invites colleges and universities in the U.S. to take a survey regarding green sports initiatives on their campus. The 10-15 minute survey aims to determine which campus groups are primarily responsible for implementing green initiatives; understand how students and fans are involved in green initiatives, and promote successes. The deadline is May 31.

 

London Olympics Set Bar for Waste Diversion at Legacy Events

Read the full post at Green Sports Alliance.

A case study recently released by London Bio Packaging illuminates the quantitative impact of the comprehensive waste-diversion plan implemented by the 2012 London Olympics. Utilizing data from the London 2012 Post-Games Sustainability Report, the case study shows how the Olympiad was able to divert over 90% of all waste generated at the Games from reaching landfills.

 

NBA Teams Encourage Fans to Go Green During Leaguewide Green Week

Read the full story from the Green Sports Alliance.

For the fifth straight season, the NBA has teamed with the Natural Resources Defense Council to celebrate Green Week from April 4-12. In partnership with league sponsor Sprint, the NBA is working with its franchises to support initiatives that increase awareness and promote sustainable action by fans.

As part of the leaguewide effort, the NBA is launching its new Mosaic tracking program to allow all 30 NBA teams to track, analyze, and identify cost savings opportunities within their environmental footprint. The 67 contests held during Green Week will offset all electricity use in collaboration with renewable energy supplier Sterling Planet, which will help avoid the release of more than 10 million pounds of carbon into the atmosphere.

In addition, official on-court apparel provider adidas is outfitting every player with 100% organic cotton shooting shirts. Players and coaches will also be donning other NBA Green gear to help promote the initiative. Another league sponsor, Sprint, is working with the league to promote electronic waste recycling with their “Pledge to Recycle”- by pledging to recycle old mobile devices, fans will be entered in a contest for a chance to win a grand prize trip for two to the 2013 NBA Finals.

 

RinkWatch: How backyard skaters are monitoring climate change

Read the full story at Mother Nature Network.

People in Canada and some northern U.S. states have a long tradition of turning their backyards and parks into homemade ice-skating rinks, where everyone can skate or play hockey to their heart’s content. But how will these homemade rinks fare in a warming world? Will people need to adopt new methods to build their rinks, or will they even be possible?

A new website called RinkWatch aims to answer some of these questions — eventually. Created by geographers from Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, RinkWatch asks citizen scientists and rink aficionados to record data about their backyard rinks. The information — including data points such as the date the rink is first flooded and the number of weeks that the ice is good enough for skating — will be used to track the progression of climate change in the coming years.

 

America’s Top 7 Energy-Efficient Baseball Stadiums

Read the full story from the Alliance to Save Energy.

As you follow the World Series this year, there’s something else to watch besides the score: the energy-efficient features that baseball stadiums are showing off this season.

In fact, Major League Baseball (MLB) has emerged as a vanguard of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)’s Sports Greening Project, which has sparked a sustainability movement across a slew of professional and collegiate sports leagues. The MLB was the first professional sports league to partner with NRDC on the initiative in 2005.

 

Magic’s Amway Center among sports venues leading way by going green, report says

Read the full story in the Orland Sentinel.

Not waiting for Congress to establish a winning defense against a warming planet, professional-sports teams and the owners of their stadiums and arenas — like the nearly new one now used by the Orlando Magic — are making a fast break into “green” construction and other environmentally sustainable practices.

A report released Wednesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Green Sports Alliance declares that professional-sports teams are igniting a cultural revolution by emphasizing green standards for major-league venues that minimize waste as they are built and then consume less power and water once they are open and operating.

The full report, entitled Game Changer: How the Sports Industry is Saving the Environment, compiles case studies of the sports industry’s most prominent and successful greening initiatives.

 

Remains of the Games: A website for all of your used Olympic furniture needs

Read the full story at Mother Nature Network.

London took impressive, unprecedented measures to inject a healthy dose of sustainability into the 2012 Summer Games including, but not limited to, erecting a recyclable basketball stadium (the temporary steel structure will be dissembled and shipped elsewhere for further use, possibly to Rio for the 2016 Olympics), repurposing the water used to clean swimming pool filters in Zaha Hadid’s stunning Aquatics Centre for toilet flushing, launching an ambitious recycling scheme for all those millions of spent crisp packets, and resurrecting Trackpants Spice and Co. from the dead for the Closing Ceremonies.

And for those wondering what will become of the Olympic Village that housed about 17,000 athletes and officials from around the globe — those buildings will be transformed into East Village, a park-heavy East London district with 2,818 new housing units (1,379 of them will be affordable) for sale and rent. In each of the units, temporary partitions installed for the games will be removed and kitchens will be installed to make way for proper apartments and townhouses.

Sounds fantastic but what about all that brand new furniture and all those fixtures and fittings installed throughout the Olympic Village that only got about two week’s worth of use? Chances are that it’s up for grabs at Remains of the Games, a giant online fire sale dedicated to unloading all the stuff — 100 percent authentic stuff ranging from bookcases, beanbag chairs and Usain Bolt-sized beds — found in the Olympic Village apartments and, yes, used by the athletes themselves.

 

London Olympics aims for a gold medal in waste recovery

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

One of the London Olympics’ sustainability goals is to send zero waste to landfill, and though that may seen like a daunting task — 2.1 million spectators attended in the first three days — it’s little different than a company going zero waste.

 

BP to showcase biofuel, offer biomass carbon offsets at Olympics

Read the full story in Biomass Magazine.

The 2012 Olympics kick off on July 27, and BP is providing attendees with its vision for “Fueling the Future.” As the official oil and gas partner of London 2012, BP is providing advanced fuels and lubricants for the official fleet of more than 5,000 vehicles at the games.