The NFL is gearing up for Superbowl madness by planting trees. On Dec. 11, volunteers and schoolkids in Tampa, Florida will plant more than one thousand trees to continue the league’s Super Bowl greening efforts, now in its fifth year. The U.S. Forest Service provided grants for the local trees, which include over 700 red mangrove trees to be planted along the Terra Ceia shoreline, to help protect the coastal land from erosion and to provide habitat and food sources for fish, shellfish, birds and wildlife. There are a dozen of these tree-plantings happening prior to Super Bowl XLIII set for the Raymond James Stadium on February 1. What’s cool about this year’s event is a new twist in the operations–long-term monitoring of the tree plantings so the NFL can begin to actually track the environmental impact.  Other facets of the NFL Environmental Program include food recovery at the stadium, donating decorations and building materials to local nonprofits, using renewable energy on game day, collecting books and sports equipment for local kids and buying carbon offsets for players and officials travelling to the game. And you thought it was all about the commercials…

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