7 minute read
Interview - Green Sports Alliance
CALLING TIME
ON CARBON EMISSIONS
Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Roger McClendon, Executive Director of the Green Sports Alliance, about the launch of its PLAY initiative, community engagement, and hopes for the future of the sports greening movement.
By Daniel Baksi
Eleven years ago, a group of West Coast sports teams – including the Portland Trailblazers, the Seattle Mariners, and the Seattle Storm, along with Bonneville Environmental Foundation – got together to discuss a single goal: how to leverage the power of sports to drive the response to climate change. It was out of those discussions that the Green Sports Alliance (GSA) was born as a non-profit organization and foundation. From those humble beginnings, the GSA has now grown to now encompass more than 350 teams, leagues such as the NBA and NFL, and supporting organizations including ESPN, all of whom are working together to support the world’s fight against environmental disaster.
“The Green Sports Alliance is a grassroots movement, beginning from a core of focusing-in on the environmental issues that we’re facing today,” says Roger McClendon, Executive Director of the GSA. “For our members, that plays out in questions such as: ‘how can I run my business in a way that minimizes my environmental impacts?’ Or more specifically, ‘What can I do to ensure that my waste enters a recycled or a re-use stream, as opposed to landfill?’ We help to answer those questions, not only looking at what’s happening between the lines of the field, or within stadiums, but beyond – using the power of these large sporting institutions that bring communities together, and unite millions of fans over time, as a unique way to reach out, influence behavior, and create a positive legacy for the environment and society.”
PLAY TO ZERO
During this year’s Earth Week, the GSA launched its Playing for the Next Generation (PLAY) initiative in partnership with Arc, designed to realize the concepts of zero carbon impact, zero waste, and zero water in sports. “We’re working with Arc to create a sports industry-specific tool to track and measures water, energy usage, and supply chains across stadiums and venues,” says Mr. McClendon. “Through PLAY, a team, or a host league like Major League Baseball, will be able to conduct a gap analysis of their sustainability performance, better positioning them to achieve the next level of green impact, and offering a pathway to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification through the US Green Building Council (USGBC).”
Through its partnership with Arc, the GSA hopes to open up the sports industry to the latest advancements in sustainable design practice. “There’s a lot of tools out there, but they aren’t specialized for the sports industry,” explains Mr. McClendon. “We’re working with our Advisory Committee of launch partners in order to establish exactly what the metrics should be and what areas we should focus on. As we move into the second half of the year, we’ll then look at integrating in what we call our ‘medal’ system for recognition and awards. Just as an athlete would stand on the Olympic podium, we envision a competition – not externally, but from an internal perspective – to celebrate sustainability performance. That’s important, because not everybody has the same number of resources, especially when we look at collegiate teams and other smaller leagues. The medal system will be about setting your pace, recognizing what you can do as an organization, and hopefully inspiring others to follow your progress.”
ENGAGING COMMUNITIES
Engaging the community is an essential part of the GSA’s push to minimize impact across each the sports industry. “The connection between sport and community is, and always will be, very strong,” says Mr. McClendon. “Within the industry, we often
refer to ‘moments in time’ when speaking about events like College Football Playoffs – now the second most-viewed sporting event behind the Super Bowl in the United States. We work with the organizers on their ‘Playoff Green’ initiative, which aims to create as close to zero-impact as possible in terms of wastewater and energy across their events. As part of that, not only do we work to create awareness through social media campaigns, but we’re also grateful to be able to leverage the power of local nonprofit organizations, bringing in volunteers to help us collect used plastic bottles to be recycled, or taking out other materials such as the seating present within the stadiums during each event, and putting those to use in local parks. Through their help, we’re able to guarantee a positive legacy impact well beyond the event itself, and long into the future.”
Over the last year, stadiums across the U.S. have been able to give back to the community in a way that was quite unexpected. “Throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen large stadiums opened up as voting centers, allowing more people to access to their right to vote,” says Mr. McClendon. “That’s part of a vital effort in securing the foundations of our democracy. On that issue, we saw leadership from sports stadiums, like Atlanta’s Mercedes Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena, and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Then again, when the opportunity came about to open up as vaccination centers, we saw stadiums and owners step up once again, helping people to get access to the vaccine. In both cases, it’s a practice that we at the Green Sports Alliance have really supported and encouraged.”
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
Another large part of the GSA’s mission to drive change is the promotion of social responsibility. “Sports is so much more than just one game, and the power of the athlete is a part of that,” says Mr. McClendon. “Whenever they take a stance, it’s not always welcomed. Often fans might ask, ‘Why are they kneeling? Why are they saying these things?’ In the US, what we’ve seen historically with George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, and others, is that athletes want to move beyond their role as athletes, and beyond an environmental lens, in order to discuss the potential for social impact. At the Green Sports Alliance, we’re trying to push the industry forward across both those fronts, galvanizing the sports industry around essential focal points – from gender equity to racial and environmental justice.”
In 2018, the GSA launched an independent subsidiary: Green Sports Alliance Japan. “It’s an experiment on how we can broaden our impact beyond the United States,” says Mr. McClendon. “When we talk about the issue of climate change, we’re talking about a global challenge. We’re now seeing the same with the social impact, along with questions of health and wellness to have come out of the pandemic, all of which affect humanity collectively. Within that context, sports consistently proven its ability to galvanize us, to overlook differences in background, race, religion, socio-economic status, or gender. The fact is that when you truly love a team, you’re able to put everything else aside – that’s the power that we’re working to leverage.”
PUSHING AHEAD
Eventually, the GSA hope to see its work precipitate a global movement for change. “Our goal now is to start to really set the NorthStar and bring about the systematic components that can help move the whole conversation forward,” says Mr.
McClendon. “At the macro level, we have the work that the United Nations is doing and the work within science to outline the key issues. At the micro end, we have frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals that help to guide and facilitate individual behavior. We’re trying to tie our work into that, whether through supply chains, through innovation, or through our work with corporations.”
“The long-term goal is to bring the whole sports industry together, and to expand our impact across the world,” says Mr. McClendon. “Then the aim becomes working with the Premier League in the UK, with FIFA and the World Cup, or working with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It’s by engaging in these key events that we’ll be able to really bring awareness to people. With an engaged community, we’re then able to put pressure on governments, local or national, to make sure they have the necessary infrastructure in place – whether that’s for waste diversion, for recycling, or more – to begin creating truly circular economies.” c
