By Soccer, auto racing and baseball make up our summer solstice GSB News & Notes column. The Carlsberg Group, a leading sponsor of soccer/football clubs across Europe and elsewhere, is leading on decarbonization as well. The Danish brewing giant has committed to completely eliminate carbon emissions from its factories by 2030. Pocono Raceway becomes the first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series track to issue a sustainability report. And fans visiting TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, NE for the College Baseball World Series have a new way to not only recycle their garbage, but to turn it into energy.
CARLSBERG TO MAKE ZERO CARBON BEER BY 2030
Carlsberg Group of Copenhagen, Denmark, pledged last week to eliminate carbon emissions and halve water usage at its breweries worldwide by 2030, as part of its new Together Towards ZERO (TTZ), sustainability drive. According to a story in Sustainable Brands by Maxine Perella, the world’s fifth largest beer maker also intends to switch to 100 percent renewable electricity for its breweries by 2022 as one of several intermediate goals. Zero tolerance for irresponsible drinking and accidents are non-environmental facets of TTZ.
Carlsberg has a great opportunity to communicate TTZ to consumers through its sports sponsorships, which are concentrated in soccer/football. It is the official beer sponsor of several iconic European club teams as well as national squads, including:
- Arsenal of the English Premier League—already active in Green-Sports with its solar partner, Octopus Energy.
- Danish Superliga powerhouse F.C. Copenhagen, arguably, the most successful club in Danish football.
- UEFA’s European (or Euro) Championships. Euro 2016, contested in France, is generally regarded as one of the most sustainable mega-sports events ever held.
- National teams of Bulgaria, Denmark, and Serbia.
Carlsberg has set some aggressive targets for TTZ, aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) protocol. By 2022, it expects to achieve 50 percent reduction in brewery carbon emissions and to have eliminated the use of coal at its factories. It is also targeting a 15 percent reduction in Scope 3 (i.e. supply chain) emissions by the same date, working in partnership with 30 suppliers.
Carlsberg’s sustainability director, Simon Hoffmeyer Boas, speaking to Ms. Perella in Sustainable Brands, suggested that meeting the TTZ goals will, “require changes in the way we buy our products, in the way we produce our beer and the machinery we use.” On-site renewables will also play a key role in getting the company “towards zero.”
Carlsberg’s Dali brewery in China, for instance, has installed over 8,000 rooftop solar panels; the energy generated from these panels is meeting roughly 20 percent of the brewery’s electricity needs.
Turning to water, the beer maker is already working to get its H2O-to-beer ratios down. As of 2015, Mr. Boas says the company’s average ratio stood at 3.4 liters of water per liter of beer. The intention is to get down to 2.7 liters by 2022, and then to 1.7 liters by 2030. Those breweries sited in high-risk areas of water scarcity will look to reduce its water-to-beer ratio even further.
Infographic detailing Carlsberg’s Together Towards ZERO program (Courtesy: Carlsberg)
As strong as Carlsberg’s decarbonization and water efficiency roadmap appears to be, it is, in the main, a B-to-B effort. If the company is undertaking these sustainability efforts, as it says on its website, in response to “increasing consumer (MY ITALICS) demand for sustainable products in a time of global challenges such as climate change, water scarcity and public health issues,” then it needs to promote TTZ to those consumers. Existing sports sponsorships—and the massive audiences that go with them—give Carlsberg a powerful platform for TTZ-themed TV/mobile ads, signage, promotions, and more. Let’s see if the company chooses to use it.
POCONO RACEWAY ISSUES ITS FIRST SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
June 8 is now a red-letter day in NASCAR history.
On that day, Pocono Raceway become the first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race track to release a Sustainability Report touting its sustainability and green efforts. Pocono Raceway President and CEO Brandon Igdalsky, a 2016 GreenSportsBlog interviewee, issued the report just days before the NASCAR XFINITY Series Pocono Green 250 race, won by Kyle Larson.
Brandon Igdalsky, President and CEO of Pocono Raceway. (Photo credit: Pocono Raceway)
“We are very proud to make this report available to the public,” said Igdalsky in a statement. “We had a lot of help from NASCAR Green, the Green Sports Alliance and Penn State among many others and we are grateful for their assistance. This report showcases our diversion efforts as well recycling, food donation and much more as we try to do all we can at Pocono Raceway.”
The report highlights Pocono Raceway’s:
- Status as the first major sports venue in the country to be powered entirely by solar power. Made up of 39,960 American made, ground mounted thin film photovoltaic modules, the raceway’s three megawatt solar farm covers an area of 25 acres adjacent to the track, and generates enough electricity to fully power the track during events, meeting the increased power demand from NASCAR operations during races.
- Commitment to diverting 75 percent of all waste generated at the racetrack from landfills by 2018.
- Partnership with NASCAR Green and Safety-Kleen to collect and process automotive fluids for reuse. In 2016, Safety-Kleen recycled and repurposed 1,040 gallons of waste oil, 199 gallons of cleaning compounds, 270 pounds of absorbent, 150 pounds of used oil filters, and more.
Click here to read the entire sustainability report in PDF form.
COLLEGE WORLD SERIES FANS CAN NOW TURN PREVIOUSLY NON-RECYCLABLE PLASTICS INTO ENERGY
Since 1950, Omaha, NE has hosted the College Baseball World Series (CWS). Friends who have been to the 11-day baseball fest tell me it is an exciting, fan-friendly, if under the radar, “bucket list” type of event.
And, given the College World Series’ adoption of a state-of-the-art recycling program that turns plastic waste into energy, I need to move it into the Wimbledon, Notre Dame home football game range on my own personal sports bucket list .
Omaha’s TD Ameritrade Park annually plays host to upwards of 300,000 college baseball fans during 11 mid-to-late June days and nights. Starting this past Saturday and running through June 28, CWS fans have a new way to make sure their garbage does not end up in landfill: The Hefty® EnergyBag™ program.
A packed and jammed TD Ameritrade Park, the Omaha, NE home of of the College World Series. (Photo credit: College Baseball 360)
Throughout the ballpark, fans will see bright orange Hefty® EnergyBag™ bags from Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics (“Dow”). If they’re not among the select Omaha households who’ve been using the orange bags since September, they likely don’t realize the bags are the entry point to a unique, four-step, waste management process that will convert previously landfill-bound plastics into energy.
STEP 1: Fans dispose of previously non-recyclable plastics – including chip bags, candy bar wrappers and peanut bags – into bins containing the aforementioned bright orange bags.
STEP 2: Stadium staff and local haulers collect the bright orange bags from regular recycling bins and carts.
STEP 3: A local First Star Recycling facility sorts the bags and sends them to Systech Environmental Corporation.
STEP 4: Systech Environmental then converts the bags and their contents into energy used to produce cement.
The Hefty® EnergyBag™ program, which launched in Omaha homes last September, recently expanded its rollout from 6,000 to 8,500 households and to TD Ameritrade Park for the CWS. As of June 2017, the program has collected more than 12,000 bags, diverting more than six tons of plastic previously destined for landfills.
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