By THE GREEN SPORTS ALLIANCE, WITH THE MISSION OF HELPING SPORTS TEAMS, VENUES, AND LEAGUES ENHANCE THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE, WILL HOST ITS 3RD ANNUAL SUMMIT NEXT WEEK IN BROOKLYN AND GSB WILL BE THERE. HERE IS A PREVIEW.
Founded as a non-profit in 2010 by Paul Allen, co-Founder of Microsoft and owner of the NBA Portland Trail Blazers, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Green Sports Alliance has grown from a group of 7 sports teams in the Pacific Northwest to a membership of over 170 sports teams and venues from 15 different pro and college sports leagues/conferences. Venue operators, sports team executives and environmental scientists exchange information about best practices and develop solutions to their environmental challenges that are cost-competitive and innovative through the Alliance’s various platforms and events.
The Green Sports Alliance Summit is their signature event, drawing over 500 attendees and 80+ panelists over 3 days. In addition, attendees will be able to tour one of the 5 NY-NJ area sports venues, with the focus of those tours being the building’s greenness. I’ll be touring Red Bull Arena tour on Sunday and will follow up on my recent “How Green Is Your NY/NJ Sports Team: Red Bulls” post last Monday.
Most of the panel discussions at the Summit will focus, appropriately and not surprisingly, on the “Greening of Sports Stadia/Arenas”. While this is certainly important and newsworthy, I’m even more interested in the power of top athletes to 1) influence fans to act and live more sustainably and 2) to pressure political leaders to enact policies that will help Save Humanity As We Know It. How is it that actors (Leo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz) and musicians (Bono) are out in front of the sustainability issue but the biggest athletes are mainly quiet? I mean, LeBron James has not yet reacted, to this point, to GSB’s direct appeal to lend his considerable (14,000,000+ FB friends) voice to the fighting-climate-change cause.
I’m certainly looking forward to the “Athletes Stepping Up To Bat For The Planet” panel next Wednesday. The most recognizable name on the panel is Mike Richter, the goalie for the New York Rangers when they won the Stanley Cup in 1994, and now CEO of Healthy Planet Partners, a Solar Power/Energy Efficiency development company based in Greenwich, CT. He’s not LeBron but his name is on the Stanley Cup so that’s a start. Look to GreenSportsBlog next week for news from “Athletes Stepping Up To Bat For the Planet” and the rest of the Green Sports Alliance Summit.
Yes, it’s time for the elite athletes to leverage their influence for GREEN!
You ain’t kidding! I mean it’s great that Mike Richter is building a solar company but he last played in 2000 or so. We need the big time stars of today to speak up about this. I’ll push for that at the Summit next week and will report back.