Category Archives for Greenwashing

Say It Ain’t So! Ben Ainslie Racing Signs Title Sponsor Deal with Fracking and Chemical Company Ineos; 11th Hour Racing No Longer a Partner

Sir Ben Ainslie is the most decorated sailor in Olympics history. As skipper of Land Rover BAR, the British entry in the 2017 America’s Cup in Bermuda, he won deserved plaudits from the green and sports worlds, for making environmental sustainability, in particular ocean health, a core value of his team.

One thing Land Rover BAR did not win was the 2017 America’s Cup, despite spending in the neighborhood of £100 million ($USD135 million) over the four-year cycle. By some estimates, it will cost as much as 30 percent more to mount a legitimate campaign for the 2021 Cup, to be contested in New Zealand.

So when British fracking and chemical company, Ineos, and its founder Jim Ratcliffe, offered Ainslie £110 million ($153 million) to fund the lion’s share of his 2021 America’s Cup quest, Sir Ben had a choice: Take the money and risk being labeled a greenwasher, or keep his good name and his well-earned global reputation as an eco-athlete among fans, his competitors, sponsors and more.

He chose the money. 

 

Since 2015, GreenSportsBlog has posted no less than 10 stories featuring Sir Ben Ainslie and his Land Rover BAR sailing team’s significant and substantive sustainability programs, including an interview with Sir Ben. I publicly lauded his and his team’s sustainability bona fides any chance I got.

That is why, as recently as two weeks ago, I could not have imagined writing this sentence:

Sir Ben Ainslie is a greenwasher.

Sir Ben earned that moniker with the April 26th announcement that his team had signed Ineos, one of the UK’s leading fracking firms, as title sponsor for its 2021 America’s Cup campaign. This was big news beyond merely the Green-Sports niche: The Guardian and CNN, among others, covered it.

 

Ainslie Ratcliffe

Jim Ratcliffe (l), CEO of Ineos, with Sir Ben Ainslie (Photo credit: Toby Melville/Reuters)

 

To get a sense of how stunning Ainslie’s 180 degree flip from eco-athlete to greenwasher is, one has to turn back the clock only two years or so.

 

AINSLIE WALKED SUSTAINABILITY WALK AND TALKED SUSTAINABILITY TALK IN 2017 AMERICA’S CUP CAMPAIGN

It is no exaggeration to say that sustainability was the most core of core values — along with trust and integrity — for the Land Rover Ben Ainslie Racing (BAR) team during its four year campaign to win the 2017 America’s Cup. The team:

  • Built a state-of-the-art home base in Portsmouth to BREEAM Excellent (the British equivalent of LEED Gold) standards
  • Used Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to measure and improve the efficiency of its use of resources, including from a carbon point of view, in the building of its race and support boats. This was a first in sailing
  • Promoted its clean oceans ethos to fans around the world during the America’s Cup World Series prep races and at the America’s Cup finals in Bermuda through engaging, interactive educational programs
  • Shared its sustainability stories with millions of fans around the world through a myriad of mainstream, sailing and green media
  • Funded the installation of solar panels at Bermuda’s National Museum

And much, much more.

Land Rover BAR would not have been able to pull the above without its groundbreaking and close partnership with 11th Hour Racing.

The Newport, RI-based organization partners with elite sailing teams committed to sustainable practices, providing them with financial, technical and other support. America’s Cup hopeful Land Rover BAR was certainly the organization’s highest profile elite sailing team partner. In addition to an annual investment estimated to be in the seven figures, 11th Hour Racing provided Sir Ben and his team with a wide range of sustainability-related services.

As Jeremy Pochman, 11th Hour Racing’s President, said in an April, 2016 GreenSportsBlog post, “We work with [Land Rover BAR] to meet the ambitious standards we set together: challenge and change practices in technology, procurement, energy production and use, efficiency, economy, community and legacy.”

 

Jeremy Pochman

Jeremy Pochman, President, 11th Hour Racing (Photo credit: Yachts And Yachting)

 

In the same story, Sir Ben showed he was fully on board: “It was clear to me when we launched the team that we could make a real difference – to operate sustainably, protect the marine environment and positively impact the people and local businesses we needed to build a winning team. With the help of 11th Hour Racing, we’ve set up Land Rover BAR to be one of the most sustainable sports teams on the planet.”

And, after attending “Inspiring Sustainability Through Partnership,” a two-day, late 2016 program at the University of Cambridge sponsored by 11th Hour Racing, Sir Ben went even deeper, talking about the need for humanity to aggressively take on climate change.

“In the last 30 years, climate change has accelerated and we have lost the equivalent of a third of the size of Europe in Arctic sea ice. The impact of this change is an infrastructure breakdown in some parts of the world, with increased conflict and migration as people are displaced in their efforts to survive; and agriculture and food supply are lost through extreme weather events, such as huge droughts or severe flooding.”

“We have already seen a one degree global temperature rise since pre-industrial levels. I’ve got a 3-month old daughter and if we continue to do nothing then in her lifetime she will see a further three degree global increase. It will lead to a sea level rise of almost a meter and potential loss of over 24 per cent of the mammals and half of the plant species currently on the planet. In that scenario we can anticipate massive disruption to society as individuals and nations struggle for the resources – water, food, energy – required to survive.”

When one takes into account the depth of this quote and Ainslie’s massive global popularity (sailing is a very big deal in many countries, not so much in the U.S.), it’s not a stretch to say that Sir Ben was the most influential eco-athlete in the world.

 

SAY IT AIN’T SO! SIR BEN SELLS OUT FOR INEOS’ FRACKING MONEY

What a difference a year makes.

Last year at this time, Land Rover BAR and 11th Hour Racing were working together to bring sustainability to racing fans in Bermuda, site of the 2017 America’s Cup finals.

But just a couple of weeks ago, Sir Ben announced he had ditched incumbent title sponsor Land Rover — which supported the team’s sustainability ethos in a number of ways — for fracking^ giant Ineos.

As reported by Matthew Campelli in Sport Sustainability Journal on April 30, Ainslie’s partnership with 11th Hour Racing also is no more. While representatives of the organization declined to comment for this story, it seems impossible to imagine that 11th Hour Racing would have worked with Ineos Team GB. Pochman, co-founder Wendy Schmidt and the rest of the 11th Hour Racing team must feel gutted.

 

Ben Wendy Harry Kenney-Herbert-Land Rover BAR

During happier times, Sir Ben Ainslie with Wendy Schmidt, co-founder of 11th Hour Racing (Photo credit: Harry Kenney-Herbert/Land Rover BAR)

 

What the frack happened?

The prospect of skippering Britain’s first-ever America’s Cup win clearly trumped Sir Ben’s (I guess not so deep) commitment to sustainability.

And, with costs to mount a 2021 America’s Cup campaign expected to run as much as 30 percent higher as compared to 2017, money was an understandable concern for Ainslie.

Until Ineos’ Jim Ratcliffe, recently announced as Britain’s richest man, stepped up with his £110 million offer, that is.

Ainslie was quoted thusly by Martha Kelner in the April 26 issue of The Guardian: “The investment of Ineos leaves us with our best ever chance of bringing the America’s Cup home.” Allow me to translate that bland, press release-type language into what Sir Ben might have been thinking: Hmmm, with Ineos providing virtually all of my funding needs, I can focus on sailing pretty much 24-7. Land Rover and 11th Hour Racing won’t be able to cover our expenses by themselves so if I stayed with them, I would have had to spend valuable time selling more sponsors. And, if we end up needing additional funding, Mr. Ratcliffe can probably ring up his friends Charles and David Koch to sign on Koch Industries. OK let’s do this!

In the same story, somehow, the depth of climate change knowledge Sir Ben expressed in late 2016 eluded him in 2018: “Fracking is not a subject I’m an expert on, but I know, having worked with Ineos for this partnership, that they take their responsibilities with the environment extremely seriously.” Translation: Climate change? Sustainability? I want to talk about sailing! Of course if — strike that — when we bring the America’s Cup home to Britain, all of this will be forgotten by my fans, the media, everyone.

 

WILL FANS CARE?

Aside from some excited comments about the new partnership from sailing and technological perspectives, early reaction on Ineos Team GB’s Facebook account was largely negative. Many commenters were disgusted with Sir Ben’s turn towards Ineos and fracking and away from sustainability. Here’s a sampler:

$217 million buys your conscience and your morals? WOW! The seas are murderously loaded with plastics and your sponsor is a plastics manufacturer who intends to turn the UK into a toxic teabag for fracked gas. You are clearly seeing the dollars but ignoring the two most important issues of life, environment and health.

Please think about it. Ineos will pollute the ground. It’s not a safe bet for sponsorship.

Ineos is a fracking company which brings significant challenges for ongoing public support for the team.

But the sad truth is winning does cure pretty much everything, at least from a PR perspective. Many fans across all sports, from all corners of the world, excuse awful behavior from the favorite players, from domestic violence to tax fraud to PED# use, as long as they win. Sir Ben didn’t cheat. He didn’t beat anyone.

All Ainslie did was play the fans, sponsors and media — yours truly included — who bought into his “commitment to sustainability” spiel for fools.

All he did was make a mockery of his core values.

And all he did was show his now two year-old daughter that he values an America’s Cup on the mantel more than clean oceans and a hospitable climate.

Say in ain’t so, Ben.

 

^ Fracking (also known by its more technical name, hydraulic fracturing) is a process by which large amounts of water and sand, combined with often hazardous chemicals, are injected, at high rates of pressure, into rock formations to fracture surrounding material for the purpose of extracting oil and gas. Its negative environmental and health impacts are legion, many of which would’ve concerned pre-Ineos Sir Ben. These include contamination of groundwater, large volume water use in water-challenged regions, methane pollution which exacerbates climate change, exposure to toxic chemicals, and fracking-induced earthquakes.

 

 

 

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CREDO Action Launches Campaign Against Tokyo 2020

CREDO Action is the advocacy arm of CREDO, a social change organization that offers products – like CREDO Mobile cell service – the proceeds of which allow it to fund grassroots activism and nonprofit organizations in support of a myriad of progressive causes and issues. Its customers and members — full disclosure: I am a member — have generated hundreds of millions of petition signatures, and tens of millions of phone calls and letters to elected officials and corporate bigwigs. On the environment, CREDO Action has, among other things, pushed the blocking of the Keystone XL pipeline, Arctic offshore drilling and coal leasing on federal lands^. Now it is venturing into the sports world, taking on the International Olympic Committee and Tokyo 2020 over the issue of rainforest destruction.

 

Now that the curtain is down on the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, the torch has been passed to Tokyo and the 2020 Summer Games.

From a sustainability perspective, the organizers of Tokyo 2020 look to be on par with PyeongChang 2018 and their mega sports event predecessors of the 2010s while falling short, it says here, of the stellar sustainability standard set by London 2012. Tokyo earns solid scores on what now are considered green-sports basics (venues being constructed to green-building standards, use of EVs and hybrids, using locally-sourced produce, etc.), and are making some incremental, newsworthy advances (making Olympic medals from recycled mobile phones, for example).

 

Tokyo Olympic Stadium

Artist’s rendering of the Tokyo New National (aka Olympic) Stadium, expected to receive CASBEE certification, Japan’s version of LEED. (Credit: Dezeen.com)

 

And, as with PyeongChang, there are concerns surrounding the treatment of forests and the sourcing of wood for Tokyo 2020 venues.

Writing in the May 11, 2017 edition of Vocativ#, Ray Lemire reported The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) claimed there is “evidence that the Japanese government is using tropical wood sourced from Shin Yang, a [large conglomerate with a logging operation] in the State of Sarawak, Malaysia, with a record of human rights abuses, illegal logging, and rainforest destruction.” To bring attention to this issue, RAN submitted petitions with 140,000 signatures to Japanese embassies and staged protests both in Malaysia and at the Olympic Stadium site.

 

Tokyo 2020 Protests

Protesters at the Japanese Embassy in Malaysia last May, decrying the destruction of the rainforests of Sarawak, Borneo to help build venues at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics (Photo credit: The Borneo Project)

 

And now, CREDO Action is taking the advocacy baton from RAN, springing into, well, action, and engaging its members in a petition drive on the wood sourcing issue.

“Tell the International Olympic Committee: No rainforest destruction for Tokyo 2020 Olympics” blared the headline of two CREDO Action petition drive mailings this week.

The petition reads, in part:

“Tokyo Olympic authorities recently admitted that they are using irreplaceable rainforest wood in the construction of Olympic venues. [According to this February 2018 Rainforest Action Network story] at least 87 percent of the plywood panels used for Tokyo’s New National Stadium came from the rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia.

[T]he Tokyo [organizers] need to feel more pressure. We need the International Olympic Committee to use its influence to ensure that no more rainforests are harmed for the Tokyo Olympics.

Japan is the largest importer of plywood from tropical forests, and half of that plywood comes from the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. Sarawak has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, and Indigenous communities in Sarawak have been fighting logging for decades.

Over a year after the information was originally requested by RAN and more than 40 other groups, Tokyo 2020 Olympic organizers have finally acknowledged extensive use of tropical rainforest wood to construct the New National Stadium (aka Olympic Stadium) and other venues.

 

Tokyo Stadium Construction

Construction of the New National Stadium. Despite being on track to achieve CASBEE (green building) certification, the organizers used plywood concrete forms made from tropical timber. (Photo credit: Rainforest Action Network)

 

Instead of sourcing sustainable wood locally in Japan, the Tokyo Olympics authorities are devastating priceless rainforests and trampling the rights of Indigenous people to cut costs.

Rainforest advocates want Olympic organizers to cease using tropical wood, implement third party verification for the timber supply chain, respect Indigenous communities’ rights to natural resources and adopt robust sourcing requirements for all other commodities that could come from at-risk forests. (BOLD my emphasis)

We can amplify their call to action by telling the International Olympic Committee that the world is watching what happens in Tokyo.

 

Now, the question can reasonably be asked: Do petitions get meaningful results? By themselves, the odds, as the expression goes, are slim to none and Slim is on his way out of town. But petitions are an important tool in a grassroots movement’s tactical toolbox, along with peaceful demonstrations, letter writing, lobbying,  boycotts and more. And, since the organizers of Tokyo 2020 are halfway around the world from North America, lending once’s voice to the cause via petition is the way for individuals here and elsewhere to take action now.

The “NO RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION FOR TOKYO 2020” petition drive, which launched February 27, is over 92 percent of the way to CREDO Action’s announced goal of 75,000 signatures, with 69,400+ folks weighing in so far. Click here if you would like to sign and help bring the drive over the signature goal line.

 

 

^ Sadly, it says here, Keystone XL and Arctic offshore drilling have been revived by the Trump Administration. Coal leasing on federal lands is in the process of being re-allowed.
# Vocativ is a website site claiming to use “deep web (GSB’s itals) technology as a force for good and go where others can’t to reveal hidden voices, emerging trends and surprising data”

 

 

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Birds Flying Into Minneapolis’ Glass-Walled US Bank Stadium Not a Good Look with Super Bowl LII Only Two Months Away

Excitement is building in the Upper Midwest as Super Bowl LII at Minneapolis’ US Bank Stadium is less than two months away and the hometown Vikings stand a legitimate shot of being the first hometown team to play in the game. The sustainability-related news surrounding the game is also positive — for the most part. 

Earlier this month, GreenSportsBlog featured the many good, green works of the Minnesota Super Bowl Host Committee. And US Bank Stadium is up for LEED certification. 

But there is one environmental aspect of Super Bowl LII and US Bank Stadium that draws concern: The problem of birds crashing into the largely glass exterior of the stadium that opened in 2016 and killing themselves; a problem that the Vikings and the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority were made aware of during the stadium’s design phase. 

 

I have to admit, I never thought about the possibility of glass buildings being a Killing Field of sorts for birds. Yet, according to the American Bird Conservancy, up to 1 billion birds are killed in this manner in North America alone every year.

But I am not a bird expert. Nor am I an architect. Heck, I never, a la “Seinfeld’s” George Costanza, wanted to pretend to be an architect.

Nor am I a resident of Minnesota, nor am I a Minnesota Vikings fan.

That last sentence is relevant because, if I did live in the Land of 10,000 Lakes and/or chanted “Skol, Vikings!” after they scored a touchdown, I would likely have been well aware that birds fly into the massive glass exterior of US Bank Stadium. The Vikings home, which opened in 2016, will host Super Bowl LII on February 4, so this will likely be a topic of discussion as the game approaches. So I decided to talk to an expert.

 

US Bank Stadium Glass Paint

A number of birds have crashed into the largely glass exterior Minneapolis’ US Bank Stadium, host, in February 2018, of Super Bowl LII (Photo credit: Glass Paint)

 

Bruce Fowle (perhaps appropriately pronounced “FOUL”) is Founding Principal Emeritus at FXFOWLE, a leading New York City-based architecture firm. He was a founder and chairman of the New York chapter of Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility, an advocacy group for social justice and a sustainable built environment. Most importantly for this story, Fowle and the firm were engaged by New York City’s Javits Center to renovate its all-glass exterior — then the number one bird-killer in the city, according to New York City Audubon.

 

Bruce Fowle HiRes

Bruce Fowle, Founding Principal Emeritus at FXFOWLE (Photo credit: FXFOWLE)

 

According to Fowle, the “problem of glass buildings for birds really came to light about 25 or so years ago. A group of ‘birders’ (aka bird watchers) in Toronto and other cities created the Flight Light Awareness Program (FLAP) to track bird crashes. New York City Audubon started a similar initiative, Project Safe Flight. Like organizations sprang up in other cities, including Minneapolis.”

These groups began with a similar, rather grisly methodology: tracking bird deaths by going out in pre-dawn mornings, collecting carcasses before maintenance crews cleaned them up.

The problem, according to Fowle, is particularly acute during migratory periods. At night, birds are attracted to decorative lights — like those at the top of the Empire State Building — and fly towards them. During daylight hours, migrating birds see through clear glass and think they can fly into the dark spaces inside. Bushes and trees in an atrium are even more toxic: Birds will make a beeline to the greenery, often plowing into the glass at speeds up to 30 miles per hour. Reflective glass poses its own challenges for birds — confused by either seeing their own reflection, or perhaps thinking it is an adversary, or seeing sky and vegetation.

Fowle himself was unaware of the problem until his wife started working for New York City Audubon in the 1990s. In 2009, by complete coincidence, he became the lead architect when his firm was selected to renovate the exterior of the all-glass Javits Center, the largest convention facility in New York City. This gave him the opportunity to solve its bird mortality problem. After some digging, Fowle and company found a winning solution.

“Our big breakthrough came when we found a high-performing glass that was much less reflective than the original — eight percent reflection factor vs. 35 percent,” said Fowle. “By adding a ‘fritted dot pattern’ on the glass, which was needed to control solar gain and reduce energy consumption, we solved the fly-through problem. In the end we reduced bird-kill by 95 percent while making the building more transparent, more visually appealing, and more sustainable – a grand slam!”

 

Javits Exterior Upgraded Glass

 

Javits Interior Upgrade

Exterior (top) and interior views of New York City’s Javits Center after it was renovated to include high performing glass with a “fritted dot pattern” that helped reduce bird kills by 95 percent. (Photo credits: Chris Cooper)

 

The energy bit is important when one considers that glass is not a good energy saver. Per Fowle, “Glass is popular for large buildings from aesthetic, cost, and marketability perspectives, but it is not at all energy efficient.”

But I digress. Back to the birds.

With the help of New York City Audubon, FXFOWLE’s work with the Javits Center attracted the attention of Audubon Minnesota. The nonprofit, dedicated in large part to bird health, was worried about the plans for a mostly glass exterior of a new home for the Vikings. Their concerns were heightened due to the fact the facility would be built smack dab in the middle of the Mississippi River Flyway, the route for millions of migrating birds from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and through to South America. Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the new LEED Platinum home of the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United, which also has a substantial glass exterior — although not as significant, percentage-wise, as US Bank Stadium — does not have a similar bird-kill problem. One likely reason is that it is not located on a flyway path.

Fowle recalls that he and his colleagues “recommended the glass used at Javits to the Audubon Minnesota, who then passed that on to the Vikings, the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority (MSFA), and their architects. So all the key players were aware of the [bird-friendly] option during the planning phase, but apparently, because of alleged concerns about a relatively modest cost increase, they decided not to go the bird-friendly route.”

So US Bank Stadium was built with approximately 200,000 square feet of highly reflective glass, and, as predicted, birds started flying into it.

Sixty dead birds were observed during the fall 2016 migratory period, according to a February 2017 study compiled by the Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis — a separate group from the Audubon Minnesota — Minnesota Citizens for the Protection of Migratory Birds, and Friends of Roberts Bird Sanctuary. The report asserts that the number “significantly underestimates true mortality at the stadium complex, because it does not include birds removed by maintenance staff, security guards, and scavengers.” And the US Bank Stadium’s reported kill rate is approximately 30 percent greater than has been seen at any other building in the Minneapolis area during any migratory period.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune and others publicized the story — which generated public protest. That led to a backlash —i.e. 60 dead birds aren’t that big a deal. Then, there was a strong volley to the backlash in the form of an October 2014 Star-Tribune OpEd co-authored by Jerry Bahls, then president (he retired this June) of the Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis and Lisa Venable, co-founder of Minnesota Citizens for the Protection of Migratory Birds.

 

Bird Advocates MPR

Bird advocates hold up poster-sized photos of dead birds at a February 2017 public meeting. They said that volunteers found those birds dead outside U.S. Bank Stadium in the early morning. (Photo credit: Minnesota Public Radio/Jerry Nelson)

 

Their story highlighted the strong public support in the Twin Cities and Minnesota more broadly for the use of bird-safe glass at US Bank Stadium (“The current glass choice simply does not reflect Minnesota values, as evidenced by the 95,000 people who signed their names to a bird-safe glass petition to the governor and the unanimous resolution passed by the Minneapolis City Council”) and the pivotal role migratory birds play in pollination and pest control (“One bird can eat 500 pests per day, reducing the need for toxic pesticides.”), before pivoting to the already-existing Javits solution.

Even though several cities throughout North America have adopted Bird-Safe Guidelines and some, such as San Francisco, have legislated compliance, the pleas for bird friendly glass at US Bank Stadium continued to fall on deaf ears.

This continued after the stadium opened last fall, when Audubon Minnesota’s proposal to retrofit of the glass to reduce the kill rate received a no go from the MSFA and the Vikings.

Calls and emails to Audubon Minnesota to get its take on the inaction at US Bank Stadium, and to see if there would be any organized, peaceful protests around Super Bowl LII, have drawn no response. The group is conducting another bird kill study, along with a team from the University of Oklahoma and the MSFA, with results due sometime in 2019.

Of course, Super Bowl LII will have come and gone well before the study is published.

The Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis will not protest, mainly for logistical reasons. “There will be a large ‘Exclusion Zone’ for security purposes around the perimeter of US Bank Stadium from January through the Super Bowl in early February,” said Bahls.

 

Jerry Bahls

Jerry Bahls, retired president of the Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis (Photo credit: Jerry Bahls)

 

Thus, it seems very unlikely that there will be any protests around the bird kill issue near US Bank Stadium in the weeks before Super Bowl LII. And, if that’s the case, the opportunity to gain national — and even international attention — on urban bird kills will have gone by the wayside.

While I certainly get the need for an Exclusion Zone, it says here that it is a shame that peaceful protests beyond the perimeter will not take place before Super Bowl LII. Such high profile actions would demonstrate to planners and architects of future stadium and arena projects — not to mention big, non-sports structures — that the public cares about the bird kill issue and that it should be a strong consideration during the design phase.

 

 

 

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GSB News and Notes: Move For Hunger Saves Unused Food from Road Races; Installing Solar Helps Keep Scottish Rugby Club Alive; Some Greenwashing Concerns about Tokyo 2020

Before the long Memorial Day weekend, GSB News & Notes hopscotches the globe, from New Jersey to Scotland to Japan: A family-owned, 100-year old moving company in New Jersey has found a novel way to join the Green-Sports movement: It started Move for Hunger, a non-profit that rescues unused food from road races. Gala Rugby Club in Scotland is using on-site solar to green its 105-year old stadium. And concerns are being raised about the use of timber from depleted tropical rainforests in construction of venues for the 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo. 

 

MOVE FOR HUNGER: USING MOVING VANS TO SAVE UNUSED FOOD FROM ROAD RACES

Growing up in the Jersey Shore town of Neptune, Adam Lowy had to have thought his career would somehow involve working with moving vans. After all, he and his brother Max represent the fourth generation of family-run Lowy’s Moving Service.

And moving vans have, indeed, become central to Lowy’s professional life; just not in the way he likely would have imagined.

While Max is now the Vice President of Office & Industrial Sales at Lowy’s Moving Service, Adam is the Executive Director and Founder of Move For Hunger (MFH), a nonprofit that works with all manner of moving companies to collect non-perishable food items, and deliver it to food banks all across North America.

 

Lowy Adam Headshot

Adam Lowy, Executive Director/Founder, Move For Hunger (Photo credit: Move For Hunger)

 

The germ of the idea that became MFH came from Adam’s experience in the moving business.

“People throw out lots of unused food, especially when they move.” said Lowy, “And they are happy to give away unused food—if it’s hassle-free. On the flip side, lots of people are hungry—far too many, in fact. This was crazy to me: In Monmouth County, our home area in New Jersey, 56,000 in fact. So Move For Hunger was created to bridge this gap.”

Since MFH’s launch in 2009, the growing nonprofit has, through its partnerships with 750 movers in the US and Canada, delivered 8 million pounds of unused food to food banks. The unused food is picked up from homes, businesses, apartment communities and at colleges and universities. And now, from road races.

Initially, Lowy’s rationale for using marathons and half marathons was not for unused food pickup. Rather, road races started out as a creative fundraising vehicle for MFH.

“Playing on the word ‘move‘ in Move for Hunger, we started to get people to run for us—getting their friends and family to pledge $X per mile—in the New Jersey Marathon,” recalled Lowy. “We raised a couple of thousand dollars when we started with five runners in 2013. By 2016 ‘Team Move’ runners numbered 200, ran 2,500 combined miles and raised $75,000. As we were doing this, we noticed that so much food was wasted at all types of road races, from 5Ks up to marathons to cycling events.”

MFH started working with races across the country in 2014 to collect their unused food and redirect it to food banks. Since then, they’ve rescued over 460,000 lbs. of food from high profile events, including the LA Marathon, Seattle Half Marathon, Miami Marathon, and the New York Triathlon.

 

LAMarathon2017_FoodPickUp NorthStar Moving

NorthStar Moving helps pickup unused food from the LA Marathon as part of its pro bono work for Move For Hunger (Photo credit: NorthStar Moving)

 

Sports will continue to play an important role at Move For Hunger, says Lowy. “Sports fills a lot of boxes for us: It’s an efficient way for us to rescue food, and it’s a cool way to build awareness around our ‘NO FOOD TO WASTE’ branding.”

 

GALA RUGBY CLUB IN SCOTLAND INSTALLS SOLAR, SAVES MONEY

Gala Rugby Club (GRC), in Galashiels, is one of ten amateur# clubs in the BT Premiership, the top tier of rugby union in Scotland. As rugby union’s popularity in Scotland is relatively small compared to that of soccer, the club’s owners are especially keen to cut operational costs. With that in mind, GRC hired Resource Efficient Scotland (RES) to find ways to reduce water and energy bills at quaint, 105-year old Netherdale Stadium.

 

Gala Rugby Ground

Netherdale Stadium, the 5,000 seat home of Gala Rugby Club in Galashiels, Scotland. (Photo credit: Resource Efficient Scotland)

 

RES’ initial on-site assessment revealed energy reduction and water consumption measures that could lead to about $27,000 in savings, a significant sum for a club of Gala’s size.

That same analysis looked at outfitting Netherdale Stadium with solar photovoltaic (PV) cells, but the site was not in use significantly over the summer period (the BT Premiership season runs from late August through April), so the idea was shelved. But, in 2015, the Scottish Rugby Union asked to use Netherdale and other facilities at GRC for a variety of activities during the summer. This turned the financial case for solar from negative to positive. GRC subsequently applied for and received a RES small and medium size establishment (SME) loan to help it purchase and install the solar panels.

According to RES, it is projected that the solar installation will provide Gala Rugby Club with around 70% of its electricity needs, reducing its annual energy costs by nearly $8,000 and CO2 emissions by around 11 tonnes.

The financial relief may sound small, but the truth is the reductions in operating costs from the efficiency measures and the introduction of on-site solar mean GRC will remain a viable part of the Scottish Rugby Union and the region for the foreseeable future.

Graham Low, President of GRC, drove that point home when he extolled, “The loan we received [from RES] for the [solar] panels has not only enabled us to save a lot of money, but is also a very visible sign of our commitment to reducing the Club’s environmental impact.”

 

GREENWASHING BY TOKYO 2020 OLYMPIC ORGANIZING COMMITTEE?

Writing in the May 11 edition of Vocativ^, Ray Lemire reported The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) claimed there is “evidence that the Japanese government is using tropical wood sourced from Shin Yang, a [large conglomerate with a logging operation] in the State of Sarawak, Malaysia, with a record of human rights abuses, illegal logging, and rainforest destruction.” To bring attention to this issue, RAN has submitted petitions with 140,000 signatures to Japanese embassies and staged protests both in Malaysia and at the Olympic Stadium site.

Since wood figures prominently in traditional Japanese architecture, from pagodas to shrines, it is fitting that the Tokyo Olympic Stadium is being constructed with a wooden lattice. And Tokyo 2020 organizers have a detailed code for sustainably sourcing timber, available for public view. Activists say the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee are not living up to the code and are thus greenwashing.

They first voiced their concerns in April about the use of Shin Yang wood from Sarawak, where illegal logging is widespread and the destruction of forests is one of the most severe cases in the world. Photos, which appeared on on the RAN website documented that the wood was indeed from Shin Yang.

 

Tokyo Olympic Stadium Construct

Construction of the Tokyo Olympic Stadium. The Shin Yang marker is inside the red oval. (Photo credit: Rainforest Action Network)

 

Tokyo Close Up Shin Yang

Close-up of the Shin Yang mark. (Photo credit: Rainforest Action Network)

 

The Japan Sport Council (JSC) confirmed the wood’s Shin Yang/Sarawak provenance but, in a statement to The Huffington Post, also said, “The plywood in question has been certified by the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, an international non-profit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable forest management. They further confirmed it is in compliance with the legal and sustainability aspects of the sourcing standards set by the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee.”

How is that possible?

RAN claims that the sourcing standards used by organizers have a significant loophole that allows “formwork plywood” to be used in molding concrete, thus giving Shin Yang a pass and Tokyo 2020, it says here, a greenwashing problem. Especially when one considers the stadium design was chosen, per Lemire in Vocativ, “in part because of its lesser environmental footprint that will serve as the crown jewel of an Olympic Games touting sustainability.”

 

# Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors, the two biggest rugby union clubs in Scotland, play in (professional) Guinness Pro 12 Rugby against teams from Ireland, Italy, Northern Ireland and Wales.
^ Vocativ is a website site claiming to use “deep web (GSB’s itals) technology as a force for good and go where others can’t to reveal hidden voices, emerging trends and surprising data”

 

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