Dr. Allen Hershkowitz was named by the New York Yankees as its first Environmental Science Advisor yesterday. The longtime NRDC Senior Scientist, ex-President of the Green Sports Alliance and Founding Director of Sport and Sustainability International (SandSI) becomes the first person to hold such a title in team sports history. Already a major advance in the Green-Sports movement, the Yankees’ move has the chance to be a true game changer.
The New York Yankees have an almost century-old tradition of firsts: Yankee Stadium, which opened in 1923, was the first three-tiered sports venue in the world. The team was the first to put numbers on players’ uniforms. And the Bronx Bombers are the first and only Major League Baseball club to win five World Series titles in a row (from 1949-53).
Another first took place on Tuesday when the Yankees announced that Dr. Allen Hershkowitz had signed on as the team’s Environmental Science Advisor, a position that’s new to the world of professional sports. His work will also support Major League Soccer’s NYCFC, a joint venture between the Yankees and City Football Group¹, which plays its home games at Yankee Stadium.
“Being appointed as the Yankees’ Environmental Science Advisor is a unique honor and responsibility,” said Hershkowitz, a native New Yorker, offered in a statement. “I applaud the team’s leadership for breaking new ground in the sports industry by being the first team to create this important position.”
Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, the new Environmental Science Advisor with the New York Yankees (Photo credit: J. Henry Fair)
It makes perfect sense that the Yankees chose Hershkowitz for this position. He has, over a decades-long career, staked out a unique role as a visionary at the intersection of the environment, science and sports. As Senior Scientist at the NRDC, Hershkowitz showed leaders across the sports world that leading on the environment made business sense and was the right thing to do. This goes back to his formative Green-Sports work in the mid-2000s with then-Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the US Tennis Association, among others. He Co-Founded and served as President of the Green Sports Alliance and is a Founding Director of Sport and Sustainability International (SandSI).
While Hershkowitz is arguable a no-brainer pick, what might shock some people is that the 27-time world champions created the Environmental Science Advisor position in the first place.
But dig a little deeper and the appointment should surprise no one.
That’s because the Yankees have been at the forefront of the Green-Sports movement since they moved into the new Yankee Stadium in 2009, often with Hershkowitz’ counsel as a consultant. Sustainability initiatives include:
Diverting 85 percent of waste from landfill by recycling and composting, very close to the 90 percent threshold required to claim Zero-Waste status
Innovating on energy efficiency through the introduction of LED lighting and more
Measuring, reducing and offsetting the team’s greenhouse gas emissions impacts The latter includes the distribution of thousands of life-saving, high-efficiency cookstoves to women in Africa
The Yankees, through their carbon offset investments, have funded the distribution of life-saving, high-efficiency cookstoves in Africa (Photo credit: South Pole Group)
Per a club press release, Hershkowitz will work “to expand existing promotion of responsible environmental stewardship among essential members of the Yankees family, including suppliers, sponsors, fans and the local community.” His primary focus will be on energy use, waste management, water conservation, and food services.
“The Yankees have always been devoted to supporting the best interests of our community, our fans and our players, and we believe effective eco-friendly initiatives are a key element of our interactions,” said Hal Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ principal owner and managing general partner, in a statement. “We have made significant strides throughout the years, and as such, Yankee Stadium is proud to promote a zero-waste economy, and stand as one of the most successful recycling and composting venues in all of sports…We look forward to even more improvement under Allen’s guidance.”
In a statement, John Adams, Founding Director and former President of NRDC, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010 for his environmental leadership, emphasized the significance of Hershkowitz’s new position: “This is a very smart move by the Yankees. One of greatest sports organizations in the world has chosen to use its visibility to promote environmental literacy in a critically important way. I congratulate Allen for becoming the Environmental Science Advisor to the Yankees, the most influential team in the history of sports.”
GSB’s Take: The mere creation of the Environmental Science Advisor position by the New York Yankees is already an important advance for the sports greening movement. By choosing Hershkowitz for the job, the Yankees — already near the top of the Green-Sports sports standings — have shifted into a higher gear, telling the world that the environment — and environmental science — is integral to its business.
It says here that, for the Yankees’ appointment of Hershkowitz as Environmental Science Advisor to fulfill its promise and become a Green-Sports game-changer, these two things need to happen:
1. Climate change, not spoken of much by the Yankees to this point, must consistently and clearly be communicated as a prime focus of the Yankees’ environmental efforts, and,
2. Engage fans — those who attend games and the larger number who follow the team on TV, online and elsewhere — to take positive environmental actions.
Do those two things and the Yankees and Hershkowitz will have teamed up to become Green-Sports Hall of Famers. Watch this space.
¹ City Football Group is led by Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahayan, a member of the royal family ofAbu Dhabi. In addition to its stake in NYCFC, it owns Manchester City, current champions of the English Premier League, and four other football/soccer clubs around the world.
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GreenSportsBlog believes that, for the Green-Sports movement to scale, it needs to go beyond engaging fans at stadia and arenas. That’s because most people don’t go to games. Rather, they consume sports on TV, on mobile devices, and more. To maximize its impact, Green-Sports messaging must be broadcast to those fans.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened much yet. Until the Pac-12 Networks began airing green-themed Public Service Announcements (PSAs) on their college football broadcasts this season.
Legendary Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer and broadcaster Bill Walton is famous for calling the Pac-12 the “Conference of Champions!”
Bill Walton won two national championships while at UCLA in the 1970s (Photo credit: James Drake, Sports Illustrated)
He’s right: Pac-12 members Stanford and UCLA rank first and second in most NCAA championships won across all sports — Walton added two to UCLA’s total during the early 1970s. Arizona State and USC have been at the top of the college baseball world, Oregon has dominated track and field (athletics) and Washington has among the best rowing programs in the nation. Arizona, Cal-Berkeley, Colorado, Oregon State, Utah and Washington State have had their moments in the sun, too.
The Pac-12 is also well on its way to being a Green-Sports champion:
It is the first major college sports conference to have all of its member schools join the Green Sports Alliance.
The league launched its own sustainability-focused platform, Pac-12 Team Green. Watch this video to learn the basics.
Pac-12 Team Green has a corporate sponsor, Unifi, one of the world’s leading innovators in manufacturing synthetic and recycled performance fibers
Starting in 2016-17, the Pac-12 has held Zero Waste Bowl competitions in football and men’s basketball to see which of its member schools can divert the most waste from landfill. In addition to waste diversion, points are earned for partnerships, innovation, as well as fan and athlete engagement.
This is, of course, beyond great.
But I am always concerned that, as leagues and teams increasingly drive down the field, Green-Sports-wise, they often choose to stop short of the goal line. The goal line in this case is engaging fans on the environment and on climate change — specifically those fans who are not at the games but who watch them on television, online, and on their phones.
So I checked in with the Pac-12 to see if they have Green-themed TV public service announcements (PSAs) running on football games this season.
Turns out the answer is yes!
Three Team Green-themed PSAs are rotating throughout football broadcasts on games that are being aired on the Pac-12 Networks this fall.
Each Saturday during the football season, the network broadcasts one to three games to an estimated universe of approximately 40 million U.S. homes. While the league does not publicly disclose ratings data for its programming, we do know that football games garner the biggest audience of all sports, so the potential reach for the spots is significant.
The three, 30 second PSAs feature current Pac-12 football players and coaches sharing how they and their schools are greening the games, from recycling to riding bikes to using public transportation. Check them out below.
GSB’s Take: Kudos to the Pac-12 for moving the Green-Sports ball from the five yard line down to the one with their Team Green PSAs. Still, it says here that the Pac-12 stopped themselves just short of the goal line.
That is because of climate change. Or, to be more specific, the lack of talking about climate change.
To be clear, the 90-second Team Green video embedded near the top of this post includes this narration: “sports greening initiatives at each school are helping to reduce emissions of global warming pollution.” That spot has aired on Pac-12 Networks football broadcasts as well as on pre- and post-game shows.
That is great. It is a main reason the Pac-12 made it all the way to one yard line.
But the reason they didn’t cross the green goal line is none of the three, 30-second spots embedded at the bottom of the post mentioned global warming or climate change.
I don’t know why the Pac-12 went that route — perhaps it was unintentional, perhaps there was fear of going too heavy on climate change, given the political nature of the issue. If it is the latter, that fear is not well-founded:
Pac-12 schools are in green hubs like Berkeley, Boulder, Eugene, Los Angeles, Palo Alto and Seattle. Climate change messaging would likely be cheered in Pac-12 country.
Climate change, among a strong plurality of millennials and Gen Z-ers, is not an “if”, but a “when” issue — as in “When will adults get serious about solving climate change.”
Since the Pac-12 is leading the way on Green-Sports in North America, I hope…no, expect that all 2019 Team Green PSAs will address climate change head on. That would ensure that the conference easily busts over that green goal line.
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With the American football in full kickoff mode, GreenSportsBlog is taking a look at two teams at different points on the “Green Gridiron” spectrum. Today, we talk with Lauren Lichterman who is helping to jumpstart the greening of The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Intercollegiate Athletics. Later this week, GSB will turn to the greening of Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles, already a sustainability leader.
GreenSportsBlog: Lauren, when I think of Green-Sports leaders in college sports, my mind goes to the Pac-12 — all 12 schools plus the conference itself are members of the Green Sports Alliance — and Big Ten schools like Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio State, which all have been working towards hosting Zero-Waste football games. The Big 12, which basically spans Texas, the Plains states with West Virginia sprinkled in? Not so much, at least not yet. So I’m really glad to talk with you about the greening of The University of Texas. Did you go to Texas? And were you always an environmentalist?
Lauren Lichterman: I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. Not a very green area, I’ll admit. But we always recycled. So I was an environmentalist. And I loved sports. So when I did end up going to UT…
GSB: …Hook ’em Horns!
Lauren: Hook ’em Horns! I played intramural basketball, soccer, volleyball, and ultimate frisbee.
GSB: You were BUSY!!!
Lauren: Oh yeah! I thought I would be an international business major, but I started taking sports management courses and loved them. I always saw sports as a powerful forum for teamwork, equality and more.
Lauren Lichterman, operations and sustainability consultant at the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Intercollegiate Athletics (Photo credit: Texas Athletics)
GSB: So did you switch to sports management?
Lauren: I did. And I worked in the Athletics Department while I was in school.
GSB: What did you do for them?
Lauren: Anything they needed. After graduation, a position opened up in the facilities and operations department. Since planning, operations, and logistics had become my passion I jumped at the chance. In fact, I got the job offer on graduation day so my timing was quite lucky.
GSB: What was your role at the start?
Lauren: I wore a lot of hats. I handled customer service, fan surveys, ran information tables at football, baseball, volleyball and softball games. It wasn’t glamorous but I loved it!
GSB: How great is that? How and when did sustainability enter the mix?
Lauren: In 2010, which was my first year working full-time, the Office of Sustainability came to Athletics, saying they’d like to start a tailgate recycling program. The Athletic Director at the time, DeLoss Dodds, said “OK, sounds great. What do you need?” I became the main point of contact on the Athletics side for supplies and logistics. Sustainability brought two or three full-time people to the effort. We ended up relying on a lot of student volunteers, which was great.
GSB: What did you and your team do?
Lauren: We roamed the tailgate areas and awarded those that really got it with the Recycler of the Game.
GSB: How did fans react?
Lauren: They really liked it. More and more tailgaters wanted to participate. That kind of reaction led Athletics to get more into greening Longhorns games. And from there, in 2014, our leadership decided that we need to go Zero-Waste.
GSB: From Recycler of the Game to “let’s go Zero-Waste” in four years. Green-Sports moves fast at Texas Athletics!
Lauren: We actually started our Zero-Waste efforts with baseball and softball during the spring of 2014. Both facilities and operations are obviously much smaller than football. Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, home of Texas football, holds about 100,000 people. UT baseball has a capacity of about 7,000 and softball’s capacity is 1,200.
University of Texas baseball stadium, part of the school’s Zero-Waste efforts (Photo credit: Texas Athletics)
GSB: Big difference!
Lauren: So baseball and softball became our Zero-Waste pilots. We started with softball, trying to go Zero-Waste for a weekend home stand. Sodexo, our concessions partner, was fantastic.
GSB: How so?
Lauren: Here’s one example. We found out that we couldn’t recycle the plastic bowls that contained nachos and cheese — those were considered contaminated. So Sodexo came to us with a “paper boat” nacho solution…
GSB: …Who’da thunk it? Wasn’t that costly?
Lauren: It wasn’t cost prohibitive — and we thought it would be. It’s a misperception that going Zero-Waste will be super-costly. For example, by using compostable utensils, less trash is being sent to landfills — and sending trash to the landfill is expensive. Most of our local vendors get this.
GSB: I’m glad you mentioned local. Austin is a bit of a green oasis in Texas, right?
Lauren: Oh, it helps being in Austin. In fact, the city is going Zero-Waste, so vendors in town are starting to manage that way.
GSB: Fantastic! So back to softball and baseball…
Lauren: Yes! So we did one weekend of Zero-Waste softball in 2014. In 2015 and 2016, we added one weekend of baseball per season.
GSB: How come only one weekend per season? If you can do it once, why not all the time?
Lauren: I know! It was silly. By 2017, we went for Zero-Waste at both sports for the entire season.
GSB: GreenSportsBlog readers know that, to claim Zero-Waste status, a venue has to divert 90 percent or more of waste from landfill. How did you do?
Lauren: In 2017, baseball was Zero-Waste for the entire season, as they diverted 91 percent of waste from landfill. Softball just missed, attaining an 88 percent diversion rate. 2018 was similar for both.
A group of UT “Sustainability Squad” volunteers flash the “Hook ‘Em Horns” sign during a 2018 baseball/softball weekend (Photo credit: Texas Athletics)
GSB: Kudos to baseball and softball. Have you tried going Zero-Waste at basketball?
Lauren: Basketball is an island of sorts. We’re planning to build a new arena in the next five years or so that would replace the Frank Erwin Center. The site is still being debated. So we’re not going to go for Zero-Waste at Erwin, but we have undertaken some small initiatives like having recycling bins available. We are also recycling at soccer matches and track meets, but we’re not going for Zero-Waste there. It’s a matter of resources.
GSB: Understandable. So let’s go back to the Big Kahuna, football…
Lauren: Ah yes…Football is a fantastic, complicated beast. First, Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium is land locked, with streets on three sides and the rec center on the fourth. So how waste leaves the stadium and where it goes is complicated. When we launched our Zero-Waste effort in 2014, we started to move our volunteers inside the stadium where could better control waste streams…
GSB: …Did that hurt the tailgate recycling program?
Lauren: Not at all. It’s still going strong. By the time we shifted our resources inside, tailgaters already knew what to do, recycling-wise. Back to the stadium, we used to have eight-yard long dumpsters around its perimeter. Fans would just throw waste in, unsorted. We needed to get the waste sorted first, then put into the dumpsters.
GSB: How did you manage that?
Lauren: Well, our former-tailgate-area-but-now-inside-stadium volunteers were deployed to educate fans. That moved the needle a bit, but we didn’t have enough volunteers to monitor 500 bins. Then, we thought, “What if, in addition to educating fans, the volunteers sort the waste?” The last home game of the 2016 season against TCU was our pilot. THAT was what moved the needle!
GSB: The volunteers didn’t mind digging through the waste?
Lauren: We asked them about it ahead of time, and they were good with it. And we have to get to Zero-Waste in football. In the spring of 2016, the campus-wide sustainability master plan was released. It said the entire Austin campus will be Zero-Waste by 2020. So, the pressure was on starting last season. Including the 2017 campaign, we’d have 18 games through the end of 2019 to get to Zero-Waste.
GSB: That’s really not a lot of games.
Lauren: I know! So for the 2017 season, our volunteer team had grown to 60. Most of them were deployed to our sustainability sort squad, with the remainder making up our sustainability spirit squad, directing fans on how to best sort through their waste. We were able to up our game from 38 percent diversion in 2016 to 50 percent by the end of last season.
GSB: That means you have 12 games total between now and the end of the 2019 season to get to 90 percent. Sounds daunting but doable.
Lauren: I agree. We learned a lot last season. Football generates 40 tons of waste per game. Before, we were sorting during and especially after games. But most of our home games are at night and volunteers won’t stay. So we tested sorting on Sunday. No one is in the way. It’s just us. We found Sunday to be the quickest, most-efficient sorting system we’ve ever had.
Some of the 40 tons of waste generated at a Texas Longhorns home game (Photo credit: Texas Athletics)
GSB: Did you get lots of Sunday volunteers?
Lauren: You bet. In fact, we sorted through the waste in an hour! So now we’re trying to work out Sunday sorts for all of our 2018 home games. The key is answering this question: Where can we stash the waste overnight? And have enough space to sort it in the morning? After working really hard all summer and collaborating with many different entities on campus, we were able to determine a specific parking lot that would suit all of our needs. So we’re going haul the waste to this parking lot on Saturday, and sort as much of it as we can before the waste disposal companies open up on Monday. This plan should get us halfway to Zero-Waste. Then we also need to work with the cleaning company that scours the seating bowl to sort properly — and that part is now in our contract.
GSB: Assuming the Sunday sort proves successful and the cleaning company steps up, will that get you to Zero-Waste? If not, what else can you do?
Lauren: We would have to take a closer look at the waste stream to see which products that go to landfill have not yet been switched to recyclable or compostable counterparts. If we find products like that, we would need to find a way to incorporate them.
GSB: Have you talked to your counterparts at Zero-Waste success stories like Ohio State and Stanford?
Lauren: Yes and we’ve learned a lot, but their systems and situations are different. Being able to bounce ideas off of them has been very helpful.
GSB: Pivoting beyond Austin, has UT Athletics’ greenness rubbed off on its Big 12 counterparts?
Lauren: Not to the same extent. But we hope that by going Zero-Waste, we will inspire other Big 12 schools to move in that direction.
GSB: Finally, what about getting fans involved in greening beyond their contacts with volunteers?
Lauren: We definitely want to engage fans more. Our social media platform, “Bleed Orange, Live Green” is growing in popularity. And, anecdotally, the feedback has been positive. You know, things like “Glad you’re doing this!” and, regarding the sorting, “Better you than me!” But we need to do more with fans…
GSB: …Two things I’d like to see are 1. Sustainability messaging to fans who follow the Longhorns on TV and online, and 2. Surveys of fans, both attendees and those who follow the team via media, about their attitudes on “Bleed Orange, Live Green”
Lauren: I would like to see those things too! We actually had a meeting with our communications team this summer to figure out how and when would be best to survey our fans about our sustainability initiatives. We want to make sure that the goals we are setting are things that our fans are passionate about as well. Our Athletics’ administration is fully on board with “Bleed Orange, Live Green.” so I think we will start to figure out more ways to support our sustainability program through increasing communications and visibility to our fans like you’ve mentioned.
GSB: Good to hear! Aside from getting to Zero-Waste, what are the next big sustainability initiatives for Texas Athletics? Are renewables on the horizon?
Lauren: Energy efficiency is a big part of the campus Sustainability Master Plan and Athletics will be a part of that. For example, when lighting needs to be replaced, we plan to replace with LEDs. Renewables are coming on campus but it’s been slow so far. That said, renewables are the “next big green thing” for athletics. I can’t give you a timetable just yet. Another big thing for us is water conservation. We are looking at a rainwater retention system to provide water for power washing the stadium
GSB: Lauren, I don’t know how the Longhorns football team will do this season, after an opening day loss at Maryland on Saturday. But I do know this. You will be a very busy woman these next couple of years, starting with Saturday’s home opener vs. Tulsa.
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As our US-based GreenSportsBlog readers head out for the Labor Day weekend, we’re offering up a GSB News & Notes for your end-of-summer reading pleasure. The University of Miami (FL) Hurricanes will open their 2018 football season against LSU in Arlington, TX wearing eco-conscious uniforms from Adidas and Parley for the Oceans. But should the Hurricanes also be taking on climate change, given Miami’s vulnerability to it? About 60 miles southwest of Baton Rouge, the UL-Lafayette is embarking on a journey to host Louisiana’s first Zero-Waste football games. And, MLS’ LA Galaxy and the Stub Hub Center add to the growing number of teams and venues eliminating plastic straws.
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI HURRICANES DON ECO-FRIENDLY UNIFORMS; WHEN WILL THEY TAKE ON CLIMATE CHANGE?
When the University of Miami Hurricanes take the field Sunday night in their nationally televised season opener against LSU at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX, they will do so wearing new, alternate uniforms made from repurposed and upcycled materials, including plastic ocean waste. The uniforms are the result of a partnership between Miami, Adidas and Parley For The Oceans.
The University of Miami Hurricanes will take the field Sunday at LSU in eco-friendly alternate uniforms, thanks to a partnership with Adidas and Parley for the Oceans (Photo credit: Environmental Leader)
While the Hurricanes are the first American football team to partner with Parley for the Oceans and Adidas, they are following in the footsteps of European club soccer giants Bayern Munich and Real Madrid in wearing the eco-friendly alternate uniforms.
The Real Madrid, Parley for the Oceans-Adidas jersey (Photo credit: Adidas)
More than 70 percent of the special-edition uniform is fashioned from regenerated Econyl yarn (made by Aquafil of Trento, Italy), a raw material transformed from fishing nets and other nylon waste intercepted in marine environments, and from Parley Ocean Plastic, which also comes from waste that was intercepted from beaches and coastal communities. The result is a “durable, yet breathable fabric that is optimal for Adidas performance apparel,” according to a statement from the Hurricanes. Players will also wear cleats and gloves featuring recycled materials. The statement claims the cleats are the first-ever styles of eco-conscious footwear to be debuted on-field for NCAA football competition.
“Our players and staff are excited to wear the new adidas Parley jerseys and gear for our season opener,” Hurricanes coach Mark Richt said in a statement. “We’re also excited that Adidas and Parley are teaming up with UM to help promote sustainability around the world.”
I am happy to see the University of Miami take the Adidas-Parley plunge and to engage on the plastic ocean waste issue. Sports teams engaging on the environment is still too rare so this is a positive.
But (you knew there was going to be a but, right?), from where I sit, climate change is by far the biggest environmental challenge humanity faces — in fact, I’d argue it is the biggest challenge humanity faces, period. Bigger even than the plastic ocean waste issue.
And the Hurricanes are arguably the most logical big time college football program to take on climate change. After all, Miami is one of the world’s most vulnerable cities to the effects of climate change, including sea level rise. So I think UM missed the boat by not tying the Adidas-Parley uniforms to climate change as well as plastic ocean waste.
Maybe next year? What do you think?
UL-LAFAYETTE’S CAJUN FIELD LOOKS TO BECOME FIRST ZERO-WASTE STADIUM IN LOUISIANA
Take I-10 west 56 miles from the LSU campus in Baton Rouge and you arrive at the , University of Louisiana-Lafayette. The Cajuns of the mid-level Sun Belt Conference play in the sizable shadow of perennial national power LSU of the powerful Southeastern Conference (SEC).
But UL-Lafayette is second to none in the Bayou State when it comes to Green-Sports. They are making a concerted effort to host Zero-Waste football games at 36,900 seat Cajun Field, starting with Saturday night’s opening game vs. Grambling.
Cajun Field, home of the greening UL-Lafayette Cajuns (Photo credit: UL-Lafayette)
“This year we’re making the really big leap forward in removing all trash cans from inside Cajun Field and we’re only going to have recycling and compost cans,” Gretchen Vanicor, the director of UL-Lafayette’s Office of Sustainability, told Lafayette’s News15.
The university introduced recycling cans in and around the stadium in 2014. And replacing trash cans with compost cans is part of the school’s plan to get towards Zero-Waste (which means diverting at least 90 percent of waste from landfill), while also saving money.
“The great parts about doing sustainable operations is usually it’s not just better for the environment, it’s better for our economics too,” shared Vanicor, “Diverting food waste from landfill by composting means we pay far less in tipping fees. When we can find those projects that are sustainable economically but also environmentally, then we always go after them.”
The Cajuns are quite serious when it comes to going after Zero-Waste:
Food will be served on biodegradable plates or in reusable containers.
Wooden spoons, forks and knives will replace plastic utensils.
Drinks will be served from either aluminum cans or recyclable plastic cups, and fans will be able to request compostable straws.
Styrofoam cups will be nowhere in sight
And, as UL-Lafayette sustainability coordinator Monica Rowand told Josh Meny of KATC-TV3, “we’re switching this year to eco-craft, compostable paper [to line pizza boxes]”
According to Vanicor, Zero-Waste at football games is only a first step at UL-Lafayette: “We really want to be leaders both in our region and in our state for sustainability and our goal eventually is to get to the point where we’re a zero waste university.”
It seems to me as though LSU can learn from UL-Lafayette, at least in terms of Zero-Waste if not on the football field. Hey, they should play each other but that’s a story for a different column.
STUBHUB CENTER AND LA GALAXY ELIMINATE PLASTIC STRAWS
StubHub Center, the Carson, California home of Major League Soccer’s LA Galaxy and, until 2020, the LA Chargers of the NFL, is now offering paper straws upon request to minimize pollution from plastic straws.
Fans will be provided paper straws upon request, with a limited number of plastic straws still available to serve those with special needs. An estimated 250,000 plastic straws will be kept out of landfills annually due to this new approach at StubHub Center
The initiative, in conjunction with food and beverage provider Levy, as part of the Galaxy’s Protect the Pitch sustainability program, launched last Friday when the team played crosstown rival LAFC to a 1-1 draw. By doing so, StubHub Center became the first soccer-specific stadium in MLS to serve drinks during games without a plastic straw.
LA Galaxy (white) and LAFC battle in their “El Trafico” rivalry game on August 24. That was the first game at StubHub Center to feature paper straws (Photo credit: Corner of the Galaxy)
The policy will also be in effect for all Los Angeles Chargers NFL games at StubHub Center.
“We are proud to continue to increase our sustainability efforts throughout StubHub Center in all of our gameday operations,” said StubHub Center General Manager Katie Pandolfo in a statement. “Protecting our environment is paramount and reducing single-use plastic straws can greatly decrease plastic pollution in our oceans.”
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Super Bowl LII will be played in Minnesota, one of the most environmentally-conscious states in the country. Host city Minneapolis is mass-transit friendly and filled with LEED certified stadia and arenas. The Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots will do battle in LEED Gold US Bank Stadium. The game will be zero-waste and 100 percent of the energy used to power the contest will be offset. Yet, it says here that the most important green aspect of the 2018 Super Bowl may well be two beer ads — unless the NFL steps up to tell the Big Game’s green story to the audience 100+ million people.
Question: What does this triumvirate — Clydesdale horses, the Bud Bowl, and recent catastrophic extreme weather events — have in common?
Answer: They are each themes of Budweiser Super Bowl ads, past and immediate future. If there was a Super Bowl Advertising Hall of Fame, the brand’s ads featuring the iconic, white maned horses and the fun, computer-generated football games played by teams of beer bottles (Bud vs. Bud Light!) would both certainly be first ballot inductees.
But corporate parent AB InBev’s stablemates Budweiser and Stella Artois are going in a different direction for Sunday’s broadcast on NBC.
In “Budweiser’s Super Bowl Beer Ad Isn’t about Beer,” which ran in the January 26 issue of Environmental Leader, Jennifer Hermes reported that the brand’s 60 second Super Bowl spot is actually about…water: “[US corporate parent] Anheuser-Busch currently produces canned drinking water at its Cartersville, GA, brewery, and ships them to communities in need. This year, the company shipped nearly three million cans of emergency drinking water to areas hit by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, and by the California wildfires. In total, the company says it has provided over 79 million cans of drinking water to communities in need. The Super Bowl ad tells the story of its employees in the Cartersville plant who produce the emergency drinking water. [It] features the general manager of the brewery, along with more than 20 of his local colleagues.”
Budweiser’s “Stand By You” water-themed Super Bowl ad (60 seconds)
Stella Artois’ 30 second ad, produced in partnership with water.org, features actor Patriots fan Matt Damon, who calls on beer lovers to step up to help solve the water crisis by buying a Stella beer chalice. Damon asserts that if just one percent of Super Bowl viewers purchase the glass, Stella will provide “clean water to one million people. For five years.”
Matt Damon stars in Stella Artois’ 30 second, water conservation-themed, Super Bowl ad
Why did Budweiser and Stella take this turn?
IT COMES DOWN TO WATER — AND EYEBALLS
Quality water is, of course, crucial to the beer brewing process. AB InBev and its U.S. subsidiary Anheuser-Busch has implemented a robust water stewardship and environmental protection program across its sprawling brewery roster.
The initiative has engaged employees, farmers, suppliers and strategic partners to devise and implement a wide range of water conservation and management measures. Anheuser-Busch says this approach helped it reduce water use across all of its U.S. breweries by nearly 50 percent over the last 10 years.
That is a BIG achievement which warrants the BIG ad spend — NBC Sports is charging $5 million dollars for a 30 second spot — on the BIG game to reach the BIGGEST television audience of the year — 111 million people watched the 2017 Super Bowl.
Reaching such a vast audience with environmentally-themed messaging is why I believe Bud and Stella Artois have co-authored the most important green story surrounding Super Bowl LII.
Oh, you might say, “I think the fact that the the NFL, the Minnesota Super Bowl Host Committee, and US Bank Stadium are teaming up to offset 100 percent of the game’s carbon footprint via the purchase of renewable energy credits is more consequential than a couple of ads.” Or, you might opine that “Rush2Recycle, the program sponsored by PepsiCo, and promoted by ex-NFL great Hines Ward, that will help Sunday’s game be the first zero-waste^ Super Bowl, has to be considered the most important green story.”
Exterior of US Bank Stadium, site of Super Bowl LII (Photo credit: SI.com)
While those efforts are, of course, laudable, I still go with Bud and Stella.
Because the audience of 100 million+ people who might see the Bud and/or Stella Artois water-themed ads on NBC will likely be between 50 to100 times greater than the number of people who learn about the zero-waste and/or the offset aspects of Super Bowl LII. That audience includes the 66,000+ fans inside US Bank Stadium, along with readers of national media outlets like Fast Company magazine, which are giving the zero-waste Super Bowl story welcome coverage.
Now, the NFL can easily wrest the “most important green story of Super Bowl LII” title away from Bud and Stella. All it needs to do is to create a public service announcement touting the green aspects of Super Bowl LII — hey, as of this writing, there are three days left; plenty of time for great content to be produced — and air it on NBC during the game.
What a BIG deal that would be! But will the NFL step up?
“As one of the most visible sporting events in the world, the Super Bowl has a unique opportunity to promote environmental literacy and reduce cultural polarization related to climate change,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz. “US Bank Stadium’s commitment to 100 percent renewable energy credits, ambitious zero-waste goals, and the [Minneapolis] region’s intelligent mass transit infrastructure, positions this event to be among the most carbon intelligent Super Bowls ever. The question before us is this: Will the NFL meaningfully promote this aspect of the Super Bowl story? Given the bewildering retreat from essential, science-based climate policy being enacted by the worst environmental administration in our nation’s history, a counter message by the NFL promoting progress on climate could not be more important. It has a responsibility to the world to do so.”
ENVIRONMENTAL MESSAGING: A WINNER FOR THE NFL
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the NFL, talks a good environmental game: “The NFL is a responsible steward of the environment in all areas of our business. Through [these zero-waste and offset projects], the League and its partners hope to set a new standard of environmental sustainability at the Super Bowl.”
But Goodell’s green talk mainly takes place in dry, easily ignorable press releases, not on Super Bowl broadcasts.
The Commish and league should go beyond press releases and talk the green talk to the widest possible audience — i.e. during the Super Bowl. Because doing so would likely be good for business.
Say what?
Hasn’t has been a tough season for the NFL: from anthem protests to “Fire the Sons of B**ches!;” from CTE to declining TV ratings#? Won’t many older fans get ticked off? Isn’t it better for a league whose ownership and fan base is seen as right-of-center to keep quiet about the environment and climate?
No, it is not.
And, again, I say this from a business building, not from the “it’s the right thing to do” point-of-view.
It is a 2016 conversation with an NFL marketing executive who preferred to remain anonymous that sticks with me. He said the one thing that kept him and his colleagues up at night the most was how to attract Millennial and Generation Z fans and keep them.
One thing that resonates with younger cohorts is the environment and climate: across the political spectrum, the 35-and-under set accepts the reality and seriousness of climate change at rates far greater than their older counterparts.
Will embracing climate and the environment be the main catalyst to turning the tide the NFL’s young fan problems? Of course not. This is a complex, multi-factorial problem and going BIG on the environment is, admittedly, not close to the most important potential solution.
But, it says here that an intelligent, clever environmentally-themed PSA will be well-received among Millennials and Gen Zers. Which would help.
Budweiser and Stella Artois, hardly fringe, left wing brands, believe leading with the environment is the right way to go. Will the NFL join them by airing a green PSA on Sunday? I wouldn’t bet* on it.
In the meantime, buy a Stella chalice and (responsibly) enjoy a Stella or a Bud in it on Super Sunday.
^ A sports event can claim “Zero-Waste” status by diverting 90 percent or more of its game day waste from landfill, most often by a combination of recycling and composting.
* I also am not betting on the game itself. My prediction? Patriots 24, Eagles 17. I hope I am wrong.
# NFL TV ratings have declined over the past three years but it still generates, by far, the biggest television audience — and not only in terms of sports programming.
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