The Greening of Football

Another summer has come and gone with the telltale sign that football season is once again upon us. According to Sporting Intelligence, football ranks at the top of the list with the highest attendance of any sport in the world, with a whopping average of 67,509 fans per game translating to over 17 million seats sold during the regular season in 2009. This means the sport has an unbelievable impact on the environment as far as consumption and waste goes, and the opportunity to influence a huge fan base. One team that has really stepped up to make a difference is the Philadelphia Eagles, with their Go Green! initiative. Started in 2003 by owners Christina and Jeffrey Lurie, the driving force behind one of the greenest major sports teams, Go Green! has grown to be quite an impressive program. Pioneers and leaders in moving the industry towards sustainability, their investment in clean energy and green initiatives have reduced the team’s impact while bettering the environment. Their accomplishments and efforts inspire hope for others to follow suit.

By taking steps to conserve energy, the Eagles have watched the savings add up, to the tune of almost 11 million kilowatt hours (kWh) representing a potential savings of over $3 million on their power bill. Keeping the ball rolling, so to speak, they’re reinvesting some of those savings into purchasing wind energy, allowing the team to run completely on clean energy at the stadium and practice facility all year long. High efficiency boilers, automated roll up stadium doors, a policy of turning the lights down after a game and performing postgame walk-throughs to ensure non-automated equipment is turned off, are all ways the organization has conserved energy. As a result, the Eagles have cut their kWh of electricity by nearly 50% since their first year at Lincoln Financial Field. And while a small solar array at the practice facility does not generate a substantial amount of their power needs, it serves as a visible symbol of the team’s commitment to doing it better. In addition to purchasing renewable energy to power the team, they are powering their employee’s homes as well. In 2007 they introduced the Renewable Energy Employee Benefit Program in which full-time Eagles employees are reimbursed the additional money spent on their electric bills when they sign up for clean green power at home. As of 2009, more than half of those eligible were participating in the program, purchasing a combined 273,600 kWh. That’s a pretty impressive participation level. This costs the team about $10,000 a year, a cost they feel is well worth it to do the right thing. Additional Go Green! employee perks include on the job light bulb and battery recycling. We should all have these fringe benefits.

In addition to conserving energy, the team has a number of other waste reduction and green initiatives in place, starting with the recycling program that kicked it all off, now expanded to include composting. Both the stadium and the practice facility use corn-based cups and dinnerware that is either compostable or contains post-consumer recycled content. The Eagles actually changed concessionaires & custodial services to one that was willing to work with them to find environmentally-preferable products. Aramark, out of Philadelphia, often goes so far as to do the legwork to find new green products for them. When the team sends out a bid request for new products and services, they include a Go Green sheet asking the bidders about how their offerings are eco-friendly with a demand for clarity about any additional costs to be incurred. Some companies have lost the Eagles’ business, or part of it, because they were not willing to work within their parameters, including their paper company and their trash hauling company, no longer charged with handling their recycling. According to Eagles CFO Don Smolenski, they look for Green Seal certified products and despite naysayers trying to convince the Eagles management that it was too expensive to use them, have found they were able to switch for little or no additional cost. Environmentally-preferable cleaning products and procedures and integrated pest management are used whenever possible, and even natural and organic fertilizers are used on the grounds at the stadium and practice facility.

Not all of the team’s green initiatives are visible to stadium goers. The interiors are painted with eco-friendly paint, the carpet is made with recycled fibers and maintenance, such as replacing a damaged ceiling tile, involves cutting out just the stained part, which will then be sent to recycling, of course. Office printer paper, business cards, invoices, staff handbooks, stadium maps & credentials are all printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper which has been processed chlorine free. Many of the soft tissue products including toilet paper, tissues, and hand towels are made with 100% recycled fibers as well. The team has a bio-fuels program in which it sends used kitchen oil and grease trap waste to local processors for conversion to bio-diesel, which the team then buys back to operate stadium equipment. And in 2009, water conservation measures were implemented with the renovation of 1,200 low-flow urinals and faucet aerators which mean 50% less water usage. New water meters have also been installed to more accurately measure their water conservation results, an important element in the team’s ongoing efforts to track their impact.

Reforestation has been a focus for the Luries from the beginning, when the Eagles joined the TreeVitalize partnership, which helps restore tree cover in Pennsylvania. In 2008, the team broke ground on the Eagles Forest at Neshaminy State Park in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, which serves as access to walking trails and the riverfront in the park. Fans are given the opportunity to offset their game day emissions with a tree purchase in the 6.5 acre forest. The team plants native trees and shrubs there to help offset greenhouse gases produced from their air travel, all while making a difference in their local community. The 4,000 plantings there will remove approximately 3,000 tons of greenhouse gases over the course of their lifetimes, the environmental equivalent of removing 500 cars from the road for a year. To further offset the greenhouse gas emissions generated by their intense travel schedule, they’ve also worked with the Conservation Fund to plant additional trees elsewhere. Back in their own forest, as part of their school outreach program, they’ve included educational stops along the pathway where children can learn about protecting the planet. And they are helping to raise funds and provide volunteers to help with the oil spill in the Gulf.

Sporting franchises are businesses. It’s rare to see owners of such a visible organization who are so passionate about the environment that they make such efforts. Most franchises will more than likely be convinced to make changes because those changes will save them money rather than save the planet, but that’s just fine; any step in the right direction is a good step. There is no excuse for doing nothing, and something as easy as recycling is a great place to start. That’s where this team started. And you don’t have to be an Eagles fan, to admit this is an organization really striving to be the best. 3,000 recycling bins passed out to local residents on Philly Spring Clean Up day, eco-friendly dinnerware on team planes, and the willingness to bring recyclables from the sidelines back home to be recycled in Philadelphia when they play teams on the road that don’t recycle; now that’s commitment. I can only hope my team, and yours, follow suit. While I’ll never say it while watching Sunday football, (and I’ll never hear the end of it if my diehard Eagles fan brother-in-law catches me saying this…) I’ll say it here… Go Green!

Sources:

Sports Business Journal

Philadelphia Eagles Go Green

2009 Go Green Report