Members of the Green Sports Alliance, an organization of more than 200 professional teams and venues committed to greening their facilities, vie each year to take home awards for top environmental improvements. Managers of basketball arenas, hockey rinks and baseball fields are competing to install solar panels, source ballpark franks from local farmers, and achieve a 100 percent recycling rate.
The results have been impressive: The National Hockey League diverted more than 105 tons of food waste from landfills in 2011; Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants won the 2013 Green Glove for achieving an 86 percent recycling rate; and the sustainability program for this year’s Super Bowl champs, the Seattle Seahawks, installed solar panels on CenturyLink Field Event Center that meet 30 percent of the facility’s energy needs. You can learn about what your No. 1 team is doing at Green Sports Alliance.
Kale Roberts is an assistant editor of MOTHER EARTH NEWS magazine. His interests include renewable energy, real food and sustainable rural development. You can find him on Google+.
