GSB’s News & Notes has a Green-Sports Mega-Event flavor today.

For the second year in a row, Budweiser will run an environmentally-themed Super Bowl ad. Sunday’s 45-second spot will highlight the brand’s commitment to wind power.

Turning to the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, climate change may make the Olympic Marathon in challenging for some spectators, and researchers are trying to see if there is a way to lessen the impact of the heat. And athletic apparel brand Asics will use recycled clothing to make Japan’s Olympic team uniforms. 

BUDWEISER TEAMS UP WITH BOB DYLAN TO PROMOTE ITS COMMITMENT TO WIND POWER IN SUPER BOWL LIII AD

For the second Super Bowl in a row¹, Budweiser is giving the environment center stage with one of its TV ads, with an assist from Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” The folk anthem song backs the spot which touts the brand’s use of wind power in its brewing operations.

According to a piece in the January 23 issue of Ad Age by E.J. Schultz, the ad — created by David of Miami — will run as a 45-second spot during the game. The 60-second version, called “Wind Never Felt Better,” shows Budweiser’s iconic Clydesdale horses galloping through a wind farm, complete with Bud-branded turbines. On-screen text states that Budweiser is “now brewed with wind power.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKDA2HVlgko&feature=youtu.be
Last year, Budweiser corporate parent AB InBev set a goal to ensure that by 2025 all of the electricity it purchases globally will come from renewable sources. The company is part of The Climate Group’s RE100 initiative (#RE100) through which over 160 global organizations have committed to be powered 100 percent by renewable electricity across their global operations.

Most of AB InBev’s wind power comes as result of a 2017 deal with Enel Green Power, which operates the Thunder Ranch wind farm in Oklahoma. Enel sells the electricity output delivered to the grid by a 152.5 megawatt (mW) portion of the wind farm to AB InBev, “substantially boosting the beer company’s acquisition of renewable energy,” according to a 2017 announcement. As result, it will reduce carbon dioxide emissions in an amount that is the equivalent of taking more than 85,000 U.S. vehicles off the road every year.

“For us in North America, we’re halfway [to the 2025 goal],” Anheuser-Busch VP of Sustainability Angie Slaughter told Schultz. “So, it’s a great way to bring it to our consumers and teach them about what we are doing on the sustainability front.”

“It’s a different way to talk about quality,” offered Ricardo Marques, VP of Marketing for Core and Value brands at AB InBev. “This is about what we are doing to improve and minimize the impact on the environment and how we brew.”

The ad is not the only clean power-related activation from Budweiser during Super Bowl LIII.

It has teamed up with Drift, a startup that operates a peer-to-peer electricity marketplace that makes it easier for consumers to get access to clean energy. Bud will cover the first month’s bill for anyone who switches to Drift and uses it to swap to a sustainable energy source by February 7.

GSB’s Take: Great Green-Sports leadership from AB InBev and a terrific ad. Interestingly, in an interview earlier this month, the company’s U.S. Marketing Chief Marcel Marcondes said it would avoid anything that touches on politics with its eight Super Bowl ads. To me, this means that AB InBev thinks wind power is above or beyond politics and/or they are not afraid of any political blowback, pun intended.
TOKYO 2020 OLYMPIC MARATHON SPECTATORS MAY FACE CHALLENGES DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Grueling.

Exhausting.

Debilitating.

Those adjectives are often used by people who run marathons, but are not generally associated with the fans who line the roads to watch them.

But, per an article by Katherine Kornei in the January 18 issue of Eos, some spectators along the Olympic marathon route in Tokyo in August 2020 could face climate change-related health issues. Temperatures average 86°F (30°C) during the middle of the day in August, with high humidity levels.

Standing around for several hours in Tokyo isn’t ideal for people at risk of exposure to excessive heat. With that in mind, researchers recently examined weather conditions along the course to pinpoint spots where spectators’ health may be in jeopardy.

On the basis of their findings, the scientists are talking with Tokyo 2020 officials about ways to make spectators more comfortable by, for example, placing containers of shade-providing vegetation along the course or rerouting a leg of the race to a more tree-lined street.

Jennifer Vanos, PhD, an atmospheric scientist at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability in Tempe, and her colleagues collected data — including air temperature, solar radiation levels, humidity, and wind speed — in August 2016 along the Tokyo marathon course using a variety of meteorological instruments mounted on a bicycle.

The scientists also calculated the “sky view factor” — the proportion of the sky visible at any one place — from Google Street View images to estimate the impact of structures such as buildings reradiating heat. Vanos and team then used these meteorological data in combination with estimates of human physiology to calculate a human heat load — the net amount of heat a person gains or loses.

They found that hypothetical spectators along some parts of the marathon route would take in much more heat from the environment than they would lose by sweating.

Vanos and her colleagues focused on three spots, all along the second half of the course, where spectators would be exposed to a high heat load with little to no air flow.

One of these locations, the square in front of the Imperial Palace, is an open area with limited tree cover and no buildings nearby to provide shade. But it is also beautiful and has historic significance, so the chances of Olympic officials deciding to reroute the course are between slim and none. The researchers’ recommendation is to deploy water stations, fans and emergency personnel there.

As for the other two areas, both with limited shade, the researchers advised installing  shade sails, trellises of vegetation, and potted trees.

These results were published in December in Science of the Total Environment.

GSB’s Take: We interviewed Dr. Vanos, then at Texas Tech University, in 2016. Her work on human biometeorology — the study of the effects of weather on human health — she has a particular focus on athletes — was cutting-edge then. So it is no surprise that she is leading this important research on the effects of excessive heat on fans. It’s no exaggeration to say that changes made by the Tokyo 2020 planners in response to the results generated by Vanos and her colleagues could save lives.

ASICS TO USE RECYCLED CLOTHING FOR JAPAN’S 2020 OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC UNIFORMS

Japanese athletic apparel maker Asics is the official uniform supplier for the home team at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. According to a company statement, those garments will be made of recycled clothing.

The company expects to gather approximately 30,000 items of sportswear by placing collection boxes in Asics’ stores, partner retailers and sports events across Japan. Pieces from any brand will be accepted until May 31, 2019.

An Asics spokesperson said that the Olympic and Paralympic uniforms and shoes will contain polyester fibers extracted from the donated clothing. Consumers will be able to follow the recycling process via a newsletter to which they will have access by scanning a barcode displayed on the collection boxes. Other recyclable materials extracted from the items collected will be turned into fuel, among other uses.

The company’s statement says its uniforms-from-recycled-clothing initiative aims to “contribute to the realization of a sustainable society in line the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and its target to reduce CO₂ emissions by 2030.”

GSB’s Take: I can’t think of a more natural partnership than Japan-based athletic apparel maker Asics and the host country’s Olympic and Paralympic teams at Tokyo 2020. The company’s decision to make the Japan squad’s uniforms from recycled clothes and shoes is brilliant from a branding perspective. Its environmental impact will be negligible unless Asics uses the 2020 Games as a springboard to a consumer line of recycled or upcycled merchandise.

Adidas, with its line of plastic ocean waste-based products through its partnership with Parley for the Oceans, offers a good model. Finally, it seems to me that Asics is slow-walking its CO₂ reduction goal — why wait until 2030? Especially when, according to the UN, the global fashion industry contributes around 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions

¹ Budweiser’s 2018 Super Bowl spot, touted the brewer’s canned water giveaway program that spurs into action in the wake of natural disasters, like hurricanes.

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