A new win for sports teams and their venues as they cut their carbon footprints | Canada Voices

Could cheering for your team also be a win for the planet? Greg Amiel, senior manager of account servicing and chair of the sustainability committee at Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, thinks so – and he’s starting with how fans get to games. At TD Place, home to the CFL’s Redblacks, fans who choose public transit or biking can significantly reduce the environmental impact of each event. TD Place is one of the few sports venues in Canada partnering with local transit authorities to offer free bus and train rides up to three hours before and after events, all aimed at lowering the carbon footprint of game days.

It’s an initiative that Amiel says reduces the carbon footprint of games. “We actually increase the amount of buses on certain lines, therefore further encouraging people to consider shared methods of transportation,” he says. A free bike valet – a coat-check-like safe parking service for about a hundred cyclists – on event days at TD Place also encourages greener journeys. The valet has been so successful that Amiel’s team is currently exploring ways to expand its capacity and offer services, like bike tune-ups, to further encourage its use.

If you’re joining the fight against climate change, the way you support your home sports team should be part of that journey. After all, a typical NFL game produces 35 tonnes of waste. And that’s not to mention how fans get to and from the stadium. Sustainability is becoming a core part of the sports experience and Canadian sports teams, venues, athletes and fans are helping to lead the charge.

At TD Place, fans can continue to reduce their carbon footprints by properly recycling the items from food and beverages they consume during games. Redesigned signage at waste receptacles indicates which items can be recycled and composted and which should be placed in the garbage. “We’re utilizing actual imagery, and not just a clip art image of [waste] items,” Amiel says. “It does a good job at increasing the amount that people are putting into the right bin, therefore allowing us to increase our recyclables and reduce our waste.”

In some cases, league-wide coordination is necessary to impart significant change. Since 2021, the NBA has adjusted its game schedules to reduce the number of flights that teams need to take. This season, the Toronto Raptors will play consecutive games with some opponents, eliminating the need to return later in the season and saving a round-trip flight. (For example, they’ll play the Atlanta Hawks on Jan. 23 and 25 in Atlanta instead of flying back to Atlanta for a second game later in the season.)

Reducing the need to travel “the schedules a little bit more sustainable,” says Annie Horn, director of social responsibility and sustainability at the NBA. In the 2022-2023 season, the league reduced its aviation impacts by over 80,000 kilometres through optimizing game scheduling. Reducing travel also improves the well-being of players since time not spent on a plane or in transit can be spent on rest and recovery.

Another league-wide initiative for the NBA, which was put into place last season, requires venues to hire or designate a sustainability point of contact. Those contacts develop sustainability action plans, alongside environmental consultants, to identify ways to reduce the venue’s carbon footprint. That might look like transportation partnerships, such as the free rides offered at TD Place, offering more vegan food options at stadiums, installing more water refilling stations and being more mindful about quantities of free merchandise created and distributed.

“We’ve definitely reduced the amount of swag that we give out and the amount of merchandise that we order for certain events,” Horn says. She also recognizes the impact that influential players can have on fans by showcasing their own green habits. “Franz Wagner with the Orlando Magic carpools to games and Klay Thompson [of the Dallas Mavericks] rides his bike to games,” she says.

The Paris 2024 Olympics also saw outspoken athletes share their own journeys against climate change. Beach volleyball player Melissa Humana-Paredes, who took home a silver medal at the Paris 2024 games, purchases carbon credits to offset the travel required for her sport. In 2023, she purchased US$3,000 of carbon credits to offset 82 flights covering 244,000 kilometres.

With nearly 170,000 Instagram followers, Humana-Paredes also uses her influence to share her environmental endeavours and messages, like taking transit on a recent trip home to Toronto and posting resources on greenwashing. “At the end of the day, it is everybody’s responsibility to be mindful of their [environmental] footprint and what kind of actions they want to take,” she says.

Humana-Paredes has also joined a subgroup of the athletes’ commission to help the Canadian Olympic Committee halve its carbon emissions by 2030. “I’ll meet fans after the games, and they will thank me for spreading awareness, talking about the importance of sustainability and opening their minds to it,” she says.