Play It Green

Here’s something to cheer about on Superbowl Sunday, other than the touching ascendancy of the New Orleans’ Saints. That is, if you can keep these facts straight. Here goes. NFL Films Studio, which produces a lot of football content and programming in lovely Mount Laurel, NJ, including superbowl content, will now be operating with a lot less carbon emissions. That’s thanks to Veolia Energy North America, which is taking over the “central facility” of the three-story, 200,000-square-foot studio complex, and providing its heating and cooling needs via energy-efficient chillers, a cooling tower and conventional boilers.

Also, off-green-topic, from a related press release… Did you know that NFL Films programming is aired in more than 200 countries? Who knew American football had that level of worldwide popularity and reach? But with compelling copy like this, how could it not? From the NFL Films website: “A super slow-motion sequence of a quarterback launching a spiral through a gray November sky. A receiver in full stride leaps to make a mid-air catch. A defender pulls him to the ground and brings the scene to an abrupt end. The plays happen instantly. The moments last a lifetime.” Pure poetry.

Also, fun facts! Games filmed 1965 season: 102. Games filmed 2005 season: 267.

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Amid the clamor of health care debating and balloon boy (remember him?) speculating and Yankees-beating that’s been going on, there hasn’t been much room for talk of climate change legislation. To really make an impact, such legislation–be it cap-and-trade, in which companies buy and sell credits based on their polluting or the even better carbon tax in which companies (importing companies included!) pay a one-size-fits-all price for polluting–would have to be passed by December. It would need to predate the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen happening that month (known as COP15), but that’s really, really unlikely. Besides being distracted and all, Congress doesn’t like to feel rushed (except when it comes to bailing out Wall Street, in which case, rush away!) And neither, for that matter, do world nations. Since the U.S. is not going to step up, the COP15 nations are likely to do little more than lay the groundwork for a future global climate agreement. Because it’s not like time is running out or anything.

And Nike–a member of the Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy–has  had enough of all the waffling. It, along with a bunch of other high profile companies like PG&E, Johnson&Johnson and Apple, resigned from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors in late September after the Chamber decided that any global warming legislation would have to apply globally to all major emitters–an extension of Congressional power that would require changing the U.S. Constitution. And the Chamber has resisted any legislation that would bring additional costs to businesses. In its statement, Nike said: “We believe that on the issue of climate change the Chamber has not represented the diversity of perspective held by the board of directors.”

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By Andrew Gardner
In all of sport, the greater environment is an unnamed opponent. Bowling to auto racing. Equestrian events to slow-pitch softball. Surfing to rugby. Sport is marked by a variance of control over a world that is carefully bordered out by pavement, ski runs, white lines and targets. From the earliest cave dwelling archers to David Beckham, those with supernatural abilities set the benchmarks of sport. Fans love when teams dominate, love it more when individuals stand out. We’re thrilled when actions are superhuman, never-before-seen, record breaking and epic. Similarly we like big personalities to go with big success, even if the bigger-than-life persona is manufactured. (Witness Michael Phelps on Saturday Night Live – the great swimmer is a goofy guy, regardless of his athletic abilities.) We demand agency over existence. This affects the athletes in how they live.

The average NFL player’s career lasts three years, upping the odds for personal bankruptcy and unemployment beyond the final season. Sustainability is an ethic that could inform professional athletes beyond the interaction between the player and the green.

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Sports across Europe received a decided thumbs down from participants at the Global Sports Forum this past Thursday for failing to do enough to combat climate change. They were roundly criticized for everything from excessive travel by athletes (equating to over-the-top oil use) to sports equipment manufacturing and the water used and pollution produced in making all those balls, sneakers and athletic shirts. Some 900 people from 28 countries attended the 3-day forum in Barcelona, Spain according to a report in Agence France Presse. Nathalie Durand of France’s Sports and Sustainable Development Observatory cited the Rugby World Cup in France as one example–she said the event produced 570,000 tons of CO2 when only 46,000 were necessary. As for the Tour de France, the event required some 2,500 vehicles, which could, conceivably be made more fuel-efficient (or perhaps eliminated in favor of the more appropriate bicycle travel?). The larger story here may be that environmental stewardship is still mostly an afterthought to sports organizations, a feel-good measure done for a big game (like the Superbowl tree-planting efforts), but not an intrinsic part of the sports community. With international pressure increasing, comrpehensize environmental reform may finally be inevitable. In Europe first, of course.

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Try to imagine life without shoes. Seriously. Life barefoot—not of choice, but of necessity. Presents a lot of logistical problems, doesn’t it? Actually, it’s a major healthcare concern here and abroad, because bare feet lead to scraped and cut feet which quickly lead to infection when untreated. From the Appalachian Mountains region in Kentucky and Virginia to Ethiopia, Armenia and Indonesia, the Nashville-based nonprofit Soles4Souls donates used shoes and sneakers to needy people around the world. In fact, the organization started in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. A year later, they were donating sneakers and shoes to Hurricane Katrina victims, and now they’ve gone global. The sneaker company Run Athletics (launched by hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and brother Joseph, a.k.a. Rev. Run of Run DMC) teamed up with carmaker Scion on a sneaker design contest that culminated in a party at the Aura nightclub in NYC on Jan. 30, with the Rev. judging. All the proceeds went to Soles4Souls. Besides purchasing an exclusive set of sneaks, anyone can contribute by simply locating a dropbox via the Soles4Souls website or shipping some “gently used” shoes of your own. Especially all you sneaker fanatics. And in case you’re wondering what happens in the very rare cases that shoes aren’t able to be used—they are recycled, of course.

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I just returned from the illuminating Water of Life conference at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York (see some impressions at the E Mag site here), where the issue was water—how we’ve allowed corporations to pollute and defile it while we looked the other way, and how fast and efficiently we’re going to have to work to protect what’s left. What could have been a depressing experience was made somewhat exciting in the way that an all-or-nothing situation inevitably is. It would be one thing if environmental lawyer and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., award-winning biologist Dr. John Todd and funny, rabble-rousing new U.N. water advisor Maude Barlow got up to the podium with the message “We’re doomed. We blew it. And we’ve got no solutions.” But nothing could be further from the truth. We’ve been on a really, really wrong-headed course, yes, and much of the world is in serious water crisis not only from too much use, but also from the privatization of freshwater supplies around the world that are then indiscriminately used as toxic dumping grounds. Regulations have been in short supply under the Bush administration, but the fight for water as a human right is loud and getting louder.

In a discussion that wove through energy policy and American culture and religion and the wilderness, RFK, Jr. mentioned the name of a certain Sports Illustrated writer: Robert H. Boyle, an outdoorsman and contributing editor who’s been writing for them since the 1950s and is still on the masthead. Boyle, a dedicated fly-fisherman and ex-Marine founded the Hudson River-protecting organization Riverkeeper in 1966, together with other blue collar fishermen who decided to challenge the railroad companies and gas and electric companies that were using the river as a dumping ground.

Now, looking into their relationship, it’s perhaps a bittersweet mention on Mr. Kennedy’s part. On June 20, 2000, Boyle and seven members of the Riverkeeper board resigned in an angry split with Kennedy who had brought in a staff scientist, William Wegner. Wegner had spent time in federal prison for smuggling rare birds into the country.

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Sports are full of inspiring individual stories, but tend to be slower on collective movements. Social justice and environmental awareness seem a little outside the realm, but that’s changing as the public perception of success and toughness expands to include respect for others—and for one’s own impact. Witness the deference given to the Phoenix Suns’ Steve Nash, who’s dedicated to supporting healthier kids and sustainable living through his foundation versus the skepticism toward the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, who may be a stellar athlete, but hardly a winning role model.

The company Fair Trade Sports is witnessing the revolution-in-the-making as they’re selling out of their eco-certified, fair trade, union-made, vegan basketballs bearing the simple message: Respect. They direct would-be buyers to Gaiam for immediate orders or to sign a backorder list on their site. They have footballs with the message, and soccer balls, and ultimate disc frisbees, rugby balls, and more. In fact, the Seattle company was the first to launch fair trade sports balls in 2006, and to later add eco-certification, using 100% FSC-certified rubber. Design-wise, the balls are cool—not in-your-face-green, but stylish enough to stand out on the playing field. Getting the Nash kind of positive attention.

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I had never heard of the left-wing Jewish Tikkun magazine, until the July/August issue landed in my inbox, and its intersection of “politics, spirituality and culture” strays down the same path as that new agey environmental magazine, Orion, more interested in waxing on (and on) about issues than doing old-fashioned reporting on them. A whole magazine of op-eds feels hollow to me (and, oh, the serious tone, like being lectured one painful page at a time). Anyway, Tikkun devoted some space in their latest lecture series to baseball owners needing to be held to higher standards. I’m kind of liking this position, particularly (as the article notes) because the players have been so scrutinized and publicly whipped for steroid use/gambling/cheating.

Here’s an interesting factoid in the piece, called “The Case of the Giants”: “Congress has also intervened on the business side of baseball to exempt it (alone of all sports) from anti-trust laws and on labor, broadcasting and taxation issues.” The main focus is this: two owners of the San Francisco Giants—Charles Johnson and Sue Burns—are seriously linked with Franklin Templeton funds, which owns some $3 billion of stock in the Chinese energy giants PetroChina and Sinopec. “The oil revenues provided by these two companies alone provide one of the Sudanese government’s few substantial revenue sources,” the author writes, “70-80% of the oil revenue is used to arm and pay the soldiers who are slaughtering people in Darfur.” Which means, the Giants’ owners are complicit in the genocide in Darfur. See how that works?

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If you want a company to change, you have to hold them responsible. Thankfully, the information age has brought with it a lot of watchdogs, particularly when it comes to environmental performance. It’s forced companies to be more transparent in their methods, but it’s also changed the business model. Companies now want that transparency—touting their reduced carbon footprints and post-consumer-recycled packaging is good for business. And it’s made it harder for those jumping on the green bandwagon to fool consumers.

What’s all this have to do with sports? Nike recently topped the list of companies on the ClimateCounts scorecard, a nonprofit collaboration between consumers and companies launched last year by organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm, Inc. The more committed a company was to reducing their carbon footprint and educating consumers, the higher their score on a scale of 0-100. Nike earned 82 points, for decreasing its carbon footprint by 80 percent. Not only will the ratings inspire low-scoring companies to get active, but the nonprofit has made the information easy for consumers to use: with a downloadable pocket version of the scorecard for in-the-moment shopping decisions.

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