SUSTAINABILITY SERVING GREEN
Major sports events are increasingly investing in reducing their carbon footprints and making themselves more environmentally friendly.
The US Open tennis tournament is one of the events to have earned a reputation as a green pioneer. Tom Walker investigates
O
ur courts may be blue, but we’re thinking green: that’s the environmental pledge of the United States Tennis Association (USTA), the
national governing body for tennis, which hosts more than 700,000 fans each year during the two weeks of the US Open at The Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York. A grand venue for a Grand Slam, the complex houses a total of 22 courts across 46.5 acres and has been home to the US Open every September since 1978. The centre’s three main courts are among the largest tennis stadia in the world, with the main arena – the Arthur Ashe Stadium – boasting a capacity of 23,200.
The green thinking pledge was for- mulated in 2008 as part of USTA’s efforts to implement more environ- mentally-sound practices at the US Open. The reasons behind the strategy were manifold, but at its heart were two key issues – the need to match spectators’ increasing expectations of seeing green initiatives in practice and the need to cut energy costs. Since its launch, the green initia- tive has resulted in more than 850 tons of waste being diverted through recycling and composting; saved more than 1,100 tons of greenhouse gas emissions; offset enough electricity to power 600 homes for one year; recy- cled almost 1.5 million plastic bottles; and delivered a campaign to reduce
private transport so that most of the fans now arrive using public transport. USTA has increased and diversifi ed its green initiatives each year since 2008 and this year the governing body came up with a record number of new schemes. Among the fresh projects were the creation of compost from waste collected in 2012, which was used to feed plants at the 2013 tour- nament. There were also measures designed to infl uence fan behaviour. Working together with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), USTA put together a 30-second pub- lic service announcement entitled ‘Impact’ – broadcast regularly dur- ing the event – encouraging fans to reduce their paper, water, and energy
Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic playing at the center in New York
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ISSUE 2 2014 © cybertrek 2014
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