Special Event Environmental and Community Social Responsibility Programs

Many of the nation’s special events are realizing that, as they attract potentially large numbers of fans, spectators, exhibitors, and participants, by doing so, they also generate mountains of waste. It’s encouraging to see the NFL (and other professional sports leagues including Major League Soccer through their Greener Goals initiative) take a stewardship position with the Public which have moved beyond purely environmental programming to now include broader and comprehensive social responsibility activities.

New Trends to Reduce Waste

Many event host communities have now become much more protective of their publicly-accessed special event venues and now require that event producers provide a plan and resources to reduce waste at the events. One example is New York City, where all street events, including block parties and street fairs are required to recycle. Non-compliance is punishable by fines. Similar programs are now in effect in most large and secondary cities throughout the country. In effect, these host communities are stating that, if the events wish to access critical city services, roads and parks, then the event must comply with the new style of regulations.

New Solutions, a New Paradigm of Social Responsibility

The National Football League (NFL) realized the impact of their events upon their host communities years ago, and elected to take a leadership position at their events, most notably the annual Super Bowl. Healthy Living Marketing, through our Green Events Group, has had the pleasure of being associated with the Super Bowl environmental program for two years now, and I can attest that the impact of the overall effort has been far sweeping.

As reported on NFL.com, “the NFL Environmental Program has developed a series of initiatives to minimize the impact of Super Bowl activities on the local and global environment. Environmental projects are executed in partnership with each Host Committee and local, state and national organizations. For the recent Super Bowl 44 week in South Florida, these initiatives include:

Solid Waste Management/Recycling – A comprehensive solid waste management plan was implemented at the major NFL event facilities including Sun Life Stadium and surrounding grounds, the NFL Game Day Fan Plaza, the NFL VIP Tailgate Party and the South Beach Experience which featured two Pepsi-sponsored concerts. This project diverted waste from local landfills through recycling and reusing potential waste materials. Pepsi, sponsor of the recycling collection throughout much of Super Bowl week, donated hundreds of recycling bins to Florida International University to help their on-campus collection efforts.

Prepared Food Recovery – Extra prepared food from Super Bowl events was collected for donation in partnership with Feeding South Florida, a local food recovery organization. Food recovered through this effort went to soup kitchens, shelters and other local organizations that provide meals to people in need.

Materials Donation – Decorative materials, building materials, office supplies and other reusable items were recovered and donated to local nonprofit organizations. Some materials were appropriate for reuse while others will be used as fundraising auction items.

The Super Kids-Super Sharing Sports Equipment and Book Donation project – In partnership with the Miami Dolphins, the Miami-Dade NFL Youth Education Town (YET) Center, the Boys and Girls Clubs and several local school districts, worked to collect used sports equipment and books from local schoolchildren for donation to other, under-served school children throughout the South Florida area.

Climate Change Initiative

This initiative contained five distinct elements:

1. Use of renewable-sourced energy to power the stadium on game day and, where practical, other venues and events.

2. Decreasing transportation emissions from the Super Bowl fleet by incorporating as many hybrid vehicles as possible (through the NFL’s auto company sponsorship) and making alternative fuels such as bio-diesel available to transportation coordinators for use in diesel-fueled vehicles.

3. Providing sources for bio-diesel and other alternative fuels to all Super Bowl
vendors and partners including broadcast media to power their on-site electric generators.

4. Urban forestry projects in and around South Florida in partnership with the cities of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, Miami-Dade and Broward counties, the US Forest Service, the State of Florida Agriculture Department and a number of local non-profit organizations that are already working on these types of projects.

5. An innovative greenhouse gas reduction-monitoring project in partnership with the US Forest Service who, with the assistance of the Florida State Division of Forestry trained local volunteers from the public and nonprofit sectors to monitor the growth and carbon uptake of trees planted as part of the urban forestry projects from the last five Super Bowls.

Tags: environmental responsibility, environmentally responsible, recycling bins, reduce waste, social responsibility, socially responsible, waste reduction