Month: February 2013

The Philadelphia Eagles has been recognized by the NFL for being a “green leader” in their league. Why? 100% of the Eagles operations are powered by sun, solar and wind energy. They are completely “off the grid” in their ability to generate energy for their stadium.

Lincoln Financial Field will become the world’s first major sports stadium to fully convert to self-generated, renewable energy. After completion, the inclusion of a renewable energy source, which will include over 2,500 solar panels, will save the Philadelphia Eagles an expected $60 million in energy costs. The environmental benefits of their green initiative is comparable to removing over 2,000 cars off the road a year, offsetting the CO2 emissions created by over 1,300 homes annual electricity usage and offsetting the CO2 emissions created by using over 1,200,000 gallons of gasoline. These are major benefits.

The question I have is, why are more teams not doing this? Understandably, there is a large initial investment cost, however, at what stage do long-term benefits exceed short-term costs? The substantial environmental benefits and savings to be realized in my mind are well worth the costs. Even as some sports teams are experiencing financial problems, I have a hard time believing that only one sports team had sufficient funds and a “true” sustainable mindset to make this long-term investment.

How could more teams start moving in the right direction? I think that the commissioners of the major sports leagues, such as the ones in the MLB, NBA, MLS, NFL and NHL should offer teams incentives for using renewable energy, and other green alternative, such as cash rewards and salary cap reductions. As none of the major sports leagues yet have offered such incentives, there is incredible potential to have the first-mover advantage, and gain the extreme green sports fans (I’m sure that there’s several of them out there!). As for now, the Philadelphia Eagles have become one now of my favourite NFL teams by taking this step in the right direction.

Sources: http://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/community/gogreen/renewable-energy.html
http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=16571

How does Canada rank on a list of the 100 most sustainable companies? Surprisingly or not, we’re tied for first with the U.S.

This list was compiled by Corporate Knights (CK), a Toronto-based media, and investment research company. Every year since 2005, CK releases a list called the “Global 100” at the World Economic Forum, with a goal of promoting better managed and better performing corporations. The 2013 list has 10 Canadian and U.S. companies, with Australia, Britain and France all having nine each. The top firm on this years list was Umicore, a global materials technology group from Belgium.

On one clear page, this list lays out the international firms most willing, and able to deal with the changing social and environmental factors they face in their day-to-day operations. However, although this list does provide incentives for the larger, publicly traded (a requirement for firms on this list) firms, it completely ignores the smaller firms who are daily making large sustainable efforts. So, although this list is helpful for larger firms recognizing how they’re doing relative to their international competitors, I think the gap of not including smaller firms makes this list almost irrelevant.

I don’t believe including smaller firms would be too difficult either. Besides the cost issue, which could be reduced by focusing on specific non, or sustainable industries and categories of firms, CK would likely have to change their measurement scales, adjusting for the volume and size of the companies. I believe the introduction of a list that would include all firms would give companies a greater incentive to be sustainable relative to their competitors, which would increase their contributions to making the world a more sustainable place.

Although ideally, all firms would spontaneously adopt a sustainable path, realistically, this is not the case. Publicly visible lists such as the “Global 100” are needed  to push firms in the right direction. Without them, unless they’re firms such as Patagonia, true (not greenwashing) changes likely will not occur. As consumers are becoming more and more aware and interested in Sustainability, I think lists such as the “Global 100” will become increasingly important in firms choice and ability of changing and improving their ways. I think the inclusion of smaller firms on either this list, or a new list which specifically focuses on these firms would be beneficial both now, and in the long run.

Sources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/01/23/the-worlds-most-sustainable-companies/
http://www.global100.org/annual-lists/2013-global-100-list.html