Manchester City continues the greening of the English Premier League by entering into a partnership with Eaton and Nissan that will promote home energy storage units to fans. Land Rover BAR, in Bermuda to try to bring the America’s Cup to Great Britain for the first time, continues its winning sustainability performance, going all in on the climate change fight. And Jenny Vrentas, the excellent NFL reporter for si.com’s fantastic MMQB blog, writes about the U.S exit from the Paris Climate Agreement. All in all, it’s a busy GSB News & Notes Tuesday.

 
NISSAN AND EATON HELP MANCHESTER CITY AND ITS FANS GO GREEN
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally planned to be posted on what turned out to be the day after the tragic terrorist attack in Manchester, England. We decided not to run it then and are offering it today instead. 
Manchester City, third place finishers in the recently completed 2016-17 English Premier League football/soccer season, is owned in large part (86 percent to be exact) by oil barons from Abu Dhabi. Their stadium is named after Etihad Airlines. With that pedigree, the club seems an unlikely Green-Sports innovator.
But Green-Sports innovators they are.
In a sponsorship deal announced in May, US-based battery storage developer Eaton agreed to market its xStorage Home Energy Storage Units—developed using recycled batteries from existing Man City sponsor Nissan electric vehicles (EVs) and manufactured at that company’s Sunderland, England plant—to supporters of the Light Blues.
According to “Soccer Meets Storage,” a story by Madeline Cuff in the May 12 issue of GreenBiz, City fans will receive “targeted content about energy storage across Man City channels over the coming weeks, including via the club’s website, app and at ‘certain moments’ during games. Die-hard fans also will be able to purchase a limited-edition Man City-branded storage unit for their homes.”
 

Eaton video (1:02) promoting its xStorage home energy storage units runs on Manchester City’s website. (Credit: City Football Group)

 
Speaking to reporters, Tom Glick, Chief Commercial Officer of City Football Group, which owns Manchester City, as well as New York City FC (NYCFC) of Major League Soccer and other clubs around the world, said “Our job is to help bring [home energy storage] to life: help to raise its profile, to tell a story, help to reach a big audience.”
Take a moment to re-read that quote.
Do you agree with me that having a high ranking executive from one of the most valuable group of sports teams in the world say publicly that bringing the home energy storage sector to life is part of its job is a big deal?
More Glick: “Our ability to reach millions of people in the U.K., and indeed around the world, to be able to convey the message about sustainability but also benefit for their own personal situation is right there for us.” He added that “phase two” of the deal could involve Eaton outfitting Etihad Stadium with its storage products.
Why is Eaton making what is likely a sizable sponsorship investment in Man City? Because 1) the club is a perennial contender for the Premier League crown, having won it twice in the past six seasons, and 2) the residential storage unit market is poised for rapid growth in the U.K.
On the latter point, and per Ms. Cuff’s GreenBiz piece, as of year-end 2016, only about 2,000 such units were installed in homes across Great Britain but “analysts predict it will grow 70 percent this year as costs fall and consumers become more comfortable with the technology.” And that is expected to be just the beginning.
Eaton is poised to be a big player in the home energy storage category in the U.K. with xStorage installations expected to begin in July. As well as storing power, the battery packs also can feed energy back to the grid during times of peak demand.
Eaton’s initial target market is solar powered homes, as they currently stand to gain the most financially from installing a storage device and minimizing use of grid power. According to Ms. Cuff, “Nissan and Eaton claim the average home in the U.K. with a 3kW rooftop solar installation could save around $55.61 per month by installing its entry level 4.2kWh xStorage Home unit.”
Beyond the Nissan-Eaton partnership, sustainability has taken a deep hold at Man City:

• Etihad Stadium is part of a sports, community and business hub that sits on what was a largely toxic and unusable heavy industry site. In its place are City Football Academy; the National Squash Centre; the Manchester Institute of Health and Performance; the National Indoor BMX (cycling) centre and a Velodrome.

Aerial view of City Football Group’s sports, community and business hub, with the Etihad Stadium in the middle of the picture. (Photo credit: Edie.net)

• Absorption chillers, and combined heat & power systems (CHP) help to export electricity to the grid and thus reduce carbon emissions.
• Air-source heat pumps, rainwater harvesting, bore hole water and LED lighting have also been fitted across the campus to deliver results.
• All waste water from ground activities is recycled and re-used across the City Football Academy and the Etihad Stadium.

 
LAND ROVER BAR KEEPS FIGHT FOR CLEAN OCEANS AND CLIMATE CHANGE FRONT AND CENTER AS IT WORKS TO WIN GREAT BRITAIN’S FIRST AMERICA’S CUP
One would think that the skipper, crew and support staff for Land Rover BAR, the British entry in the 35th America’s Cup Presented by Louis Vuitton taking place in Bermuda, would be focused on one thing and one thing only over the next month: Becoming the first team to win the trophy for the U.K. in the 166 year history of the race. And, rest assured, the squad is hyper-focused.
But, working with Exclusive Sustainability Partner 11th Hour Racing, Land Rover BAR is demonstrating it can go all out to win while also going all in on its very public campaign that promotes 1) a clean, healthy marine environment and 2) climate change.
As far as the racing is concerned, Land Rover BAR and skipper Sir Ben Ainslie made it through last week’s qualifiers and are facing off against Emirates Team New Zealand in this week’s challengers’ playoffs. The Kiwis own a 2-0 lead over Land Rover BAR in the best 5-of-9 series, winning the opening races on Monday after the British boat suffered damage to its wing, which required the team to abandon the first race and forfeit the second in order to do the necessary repairs. But things can turn around quickly with two more races set for tomorrow, two for Wednesday and up to three more on Thursday – this series runs as a “first-to-win five races,” so the numbers of actual races sailed will depend on the results. The winner will face the winner of the Artemis Racing (Sweden) – SoftBank Team Japan duel, tied 1-1 after Monday’s action, in the challengers’ playoffs finals, scheduled for June 10-12. The survivor will then match up in the final series vs. Oracle Team USA, the current holder of the America’s Cup, beginning on June 17.
While Land Rover BAR’s results on the water are still to be determined, its sustainability initiatives are already proven winners. This is due, in large part, because the team and 11th Hour Racing are leveraging the “Power of Partnership,” encouraging and working with the team’s many global, British and Bermudian corporate and nonprofit partners (BT, Aberdeen Asset Management and Low Carbon to name but a few), to engage their stakeholders (employees, consumers, etc) to take specific positive environmental actions. The partners were provided a toolkit that shows them how to seed a new environmental action each week during the month-long America’s Cup homestretch, starting the week of May 22nd.

• Say No to Single Use Plastics (w/o 5/22)
• Go Meat Free on Mondays (w/o 5/29): Talk about a win-win-win: Cutting meat from one’s diet one day per week helps slow climate change, protect the environment and improve one’s health.
• Consume Only Sustainable Seafood, Including Lionfish (w/o 6/5): Scheduled to coincide with World Oceans Day. 70 percent of the world’s fisheries are overexploited, or have already suffered a collapse. Invasive lionfish have no natural predators in the Atlantic—and are particularly problematic in Bermuda. They threaten native ecosystems including coral reefs. During the run up to the America’s Cup Finals, 11th Hour Racing spearheaded an #EatLionfish educational campaign in Bermuda. With World Oceans Day taking place June 8, this is a great week to, per Land Rover BAR, “Eat ’em to Beat ’em!”

• Promote and Use Renewable Energy (w/o 6/12)
• Recycle Unwanted Materials (w/o 6/19)

 
These programs are just the latest examples of Land Rover BAR’s Best-In-Class sustainability track record, including its BREEAM Excellent (akin to LEED Gold) home base in Portsmouth, England, to its Life Cycle Assessment approach to carbon efficiency, and much more. Per a recent press release, these efforts are designed to keep the team consistent with the tenets of the Paris Climate Agreement, doing its part in the effort to reduce global carbon emissions by 80 percent over the next 30 years.

 

 
JENNY VRENTAS OF SI.COM’S MONDAY MORNING QB OPINES ABOUT U.S. EXIT FROM PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT
Jenny Vrentas is a fantastic sportswriter, covering the NFL for Sports Illustrated’s popular Monday Morning Quarterback site—it reaches 1 million readers monthly. Her stories on the varied aspects of the league’s potentially existential concussion issues are informative and illuminating. This week, she substituted for the vacationing Peter King, the site’s Grand Poobah, penning her version of the must-read (for pro football fans) MMQB column, a detailed, insider’s view of the news, rumors and nuggets surrounding the NFL.

 

Jenny Vrentas, from si.com’s MMQB blog. (Photo credit: Twitter)

 
So imagine my pleasant surprise when Ms. Vrentas, near the very end of MMQB, in the TEN THINGS I THINK I THINK section, in the “I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week” subsection, included the following as her items c and d:
c. I was trying to find a smart link between the urgency of the fight against climate change and sports. This was the best I could do.

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