Blue Strike Environmental creates scalable programs for events and organizations of all sizes, lowering barriers so that more people can start their sustainability journey.
In part one of a two-part series, the Council got the chance to sit down with Blue Strike’s Director of Special Events, Alex Baxter.
The Council predicts that 80% mass participation races could be carbon neutral by 2030.
Early Call Time, a road race and endurance event sector-focused podcast hosted by Eli Asch and Tony Yamanaka recently had a discussion with the Council for Responsible Sport’s executive director, Shelley Villalobos, about the origins of the Council, what it does, and what it means and takes to become a Responsible Sport Certified event.
It’s been 40 years since the running world was captivated by a Norwegian force of nature named Grete Waitz, who was 26-years-old when she took New York by storm to win the New York City Marathon for the first of nine times.
In late August of this year, another Scandinavian force of nature named Greta took New York City by storm. Sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg, a Swede, arrived in New York on a racing yacht equipped with solar panels and underwater turbines. Her mode of transportation was intentional, as was her mission—to participate in climate protests in conjunction with the U.N. Climate Action Summit. While in North America, Greta participated in numerous other climate action protests in cities across the U.S. and Canada as well as on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
On November 13, Greta set sail from New York, bound for Spain and the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) aboard a 48-foot catamaran (Greta refuses to fly due to the carbon emissions from air travel).
On December 11, Time Magazine named Greta Thunberg the 2019 Person of the Year, and featured her on the magazine’s cover for the second time this year. She has also appeared on the covers of GQ, i-D and Wired.
A hand-painted sign depicts 2019 Time Magazine Person of the Year, 16-year old Greta Thunberg, at a climate change demonstration in Portland, Oregon on September 20, 2019.
Why, you may wonder, have I just spent some 200 words introducing you to one of the world’s leading climate activists? It’s simple, really—so you’ll recognize Greta and her cohorts when they decide to protest at a really big (or small) road race.
And why would they do that? After all, our events are certainly not the most egregious consumers of fossil fuels, though airline travel to any big “destination race” results in significant emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I’d say the likelihood of climate protests at road races is pretty high just because we present an attractive nuisance of sorts.
Think about it. Any event with a captive audience of thousands of participants and/or fans provides protesters of any persuasion an easy opportunity to make their point. That’s why student protestors targeted the recent Harvard vs. Yale football game to demand that their universities divest from investments in fossil fuels (they ended up delaying the start of the second half of the game by some 20 minutes). That’s why I worry about when and where, not if, climate protests will come to road racing.
So what’s a race director to do? Well, you should start by having a specific set of policies and procedures for dealing with protests about a wide variety of controversial issues or situations, and have plans in place with local authorities for managing crowds and potential violence.
And, if you haven’t done so already, do something proactive to reduce your event’s carbon footprint. Partner with your local public transportation providers to offer free or discounted transportation on race weekend to runners, volunteers and spectators. If you’re designing a new course, make it a loop rather than point-to-point route and eliminate any need to transport runners to or from the start or finish. At the very least, calculate your event’s carbon footprint—you can’t manage what you don’t measure. (The next step, of course, would be to purchase carbon offsets to mitigate the overall impact of your event.)
My point is that there are myriad initiatives you can undertake to better manage the carbon footprint of your race. I encourage you to browse the Council for Responsible Sport’s certification standards for an extensive list of things you can do, even if you have no intention of actually pursuing Council certification. Or reach out to a Council certified event to ask for advice and help—here’s a handy list for your reference.
Finally, consider signing on to the United Nation’s Sports for Climate Action Framework, an attainable and straightforward set of five principles that include:
Committing to undertake systematic efforts to promote greater environmental responsibility
Reducing overall climate impact
Educating for climate action
Promoting sustainable and responsible consumption
Advocating for climate action through communication
Please, do something. And not just to preempt any potential for climate action protests at your road race. Take it from Greta, it’s the right thing to do.
Keith Peters first organized running events for students at the University of Tennessee, Martin in 1978, and was involved in producing the Cascade Run Off from 1981-93. Over the past 12 years, he has worked with scores of road races seeking verification and recognition of their efforts to become more sustainable. He is currently a board member of the Council for Responsible Sport.
Don’t get me wrong—I loved all the attention the Virgin Money London Marathon got for their pilot program of edible/biodegradable capsules made from seaweed. News outlets ranging from the BBC, CNN, NPR, NY Times, and Forbes all ran stories about London Marathon organizers replacing thousands of plastic water bottles with seaweed sachets at one aid station in a pilot program.
By Keith Peters
Back in the day, when Conley Sports was producing the Austin Marathon, and Michelle Sandquist was their “green queen,” the Conley Sports crew held regularly scheduled “trash runs” along the marathon course. The objective was to systematically pick up litter along sections of the marathon route throughout the year.
These days, the global term for trash runs is plogging, a mash-up of jogging and the Swedish term for picking up litter—plocka upp. Thanks to Swede Erik Ahlstrom, plogging became a thing in Sweden in 2016, following growing concern about plastic pollution. The term, and the event concept, quickly spread to other countries and was a PBS NewsHour feature last November.
Call it what you will, there’s no denying the fact that picking up trash along our favorite running loops is an activity that has both environmental and community goodwill benefits—especially if one takes the time to recycle or compost as much of what was gathered as possible. And it’s very popular. There are almost 42,000 posts on Instagram hashtagged #plogging, not to mention countless location-based hashtags like #ploggingusa, #ploggingukraine, etc. A quick search will also turn up numerous country- or city-specific Instagram accounts like @ploggingnorway, @ploggingnyc and @plogginglondon.
Not to be outdone by Instagram, there’s a lot of hubbub about plogging on Facebook as well. Ultrarunner and the American Trail Running Association’s Outreach & Partnership Specialist Peter Maksimow started the Facebook Group Pikes Peak Ploggers to clean up the area around Pikes Peak. Group members collect trash and recycling, post pictures to the group page, and can earn prizes like plogging bags, socks, shirts, etc. Maksimow’s is a small (35 members) but active and growing group, with an average of seven posts to the FB group page every day. Of course, there are umpteen other plogging pages and mentions on Facebook.
Peter Maksimow with trash collected during the Del Norte Trails Showcase
Community cleanup promoted by the Barr Trail Mountain Race
In researching this column, the closest I came to finding an organizational champion for plogging in the USA is Keep America Beautiful. And they’re definitely more of an advocate than organizer. In fact, I’d liken plogging to the Runner’s World fun runs in the late 1970s—very low-key and grassroots, free, and uncomplicated by worries about insurance and/or liability.
Of course, the grassroots activity of picking up litter isn’t new, nor is it unique to the running world. Perhaps, the granddaddy of all 21st century litter pick up campaigns is Litterati, an online community dedicated to identifying, mapping and collecting the world’s litter. With 2,350,136 (and counting) pieces of litter geotagged on its website since 2012, and nearly 22,000 followers of @litterati and 233,719 (and counting) pictures tagged #litterati on Instagram, there’s no denying the involvement and passion that an inspired campaign can generate.
Poke around online and see what you find. Don’t expect to find a plogging how-to manual via google search, but I’m pretty sure you’ll be inspired to go out and pick something up on your next run. Maybe you’ll even start a plogging group or event of your own. Please let me know if you do.
Keith Peters first organized running events for students at the University of Tennessee, Martin in 1978, and was involved in producing the Cascade Run Off from 1981-93. For the past 11 years, he has worked with scores of road races seeking verification of their efforts to become more sustainable. He is currently a board member of the Council for Responsible Sport. Working on this column has inspired him to be more diligent picking up litter while out on the streets and trails of Portland, Oregon. Look for proof @pdxpixbykp on Instagram.
September 18, 2018, CHICAGO – The Bank of America Chicago Marathon is partnering with Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium to take on the issue of reducing single-use plastic pollution by joining the aquarium’s Shedd the Straw initiative for the 2018 Chicago Marathon on October 7. The partnership aims to reduce plastic use and encourage more sustainable alternatives for marathon participants, vendors and hotel and restaurant partners.
This sustainability initiative is designed to help protect water systems and the animals that live in them by highlighting the dangers single-use plastic straws pose to aquatic life and will provide an educational awareness to the many runners and partners that support the race.
One way the organizations hope to make an impact is by asking all Chicago Marathon hotel partners, restaurants and vendors to join the aquarium’s Shedd the Straw initiative for race weekend and hopefully, permanently. Participation involves serving straws only upon request and switching to compostable options such as paper straws. The aquarium asks that participating businesses retain some plastic straws on site for anyone who might still require one.
The cause encourages people who don’t require a plastic straw to consider using a more environmentally friendly alternative or ditching the straw entirely. Information will be available race weekend at the Abbott Health & Fitness Expo, encouraging race participants, spectators and fans of the sport to learn more about Shedd the Straw.
“Our partnership with Shedd Aquarium is an exciting next step in the growth of our sustainability program,” said Bank of America Chicago Marathon Executive Race Director Carey Pinkowski. “It’s rewarding to see the enthusiasm our runners, volunteers and event partners have to make the marathon and their own communities as sustainable as possible. We hope everyone will join us race weekend as we Shedd the Straw.”
Straws are one of the top 10 most common items found in beach clean-ups across the Great Lakes, and are part of the 11 million pounds of plastic waste that enter Lake Michigan each year– the equivalent of 100 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Because plastics cannot biodegrade, they simply break down into smaller pieces over time and endanger wildlife that might accidentally ingest the plastic or become entangled in it. Plastic bags and bottles are additional offenders, which can easily be replaced with more sustainable, reusable alternatives.
“Small changes like ‘Shedding the Straw’ or finding alternatives to common single-use plastics can turn into big solutions for the health of our lakes, rivers and oceans,” said Cheryl Mell, Senior Vice President, Conservation Partnerships and Programs. “We are proud to be a resource for the Chicago Marathon and to inspire racers and spectators alike to reduce our collective plastic footprint.”
The aquarium’s Shedd the Straw initiative began last year on Earth Day, when Shedd Aquarium launched its campaign encouraging people to switch from single-use plastic straws to reusable or biodegradable alternatives. Since then, more than 160 local restaurants have signed onto the cause, as well as larger organizations like the Chicago White Sox and Loews Chicago Hotels.
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ABOUT BANK OF AMERICA CHICAGO MARATHON In its 41st year on Sunday, October 7, the Bank of America Chicago Marathon welcomes thousands of runners from more than 100 countries and all 50 states, including a world-class elite field, top regional and Masters runners, race veterans, debut marathoners and charity runners. The race’s iconic course takes runners through 29 vibrant neighborhoods on an architectural and cultural tour of Chicago. Annually, an estimated 1.7 million spectators line the streets cheering on more than 40,000 runners from the start line to the final stretch down Columbus Drive. As a result of the race’s national and international draw, the Chicago Marathon assists in raising millions of dollars for a variety of charitable causes while generating $282 million in annual economic impact to its host city. The 2018 Bank of America Chicago Marathon, a member of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, will start and finish in Grant Park beginning at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, October 7. In advance of the race, a two-day Abbott Health & Fitness Expo will be held at McCormick Place Convention Center on Friday, October 5, and Saturday, October 6. For more information about the event and how to get involved, go to chicagomarathon.com.
ABOUT SHEDD AQUARIUM The John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago sparks compassion, curiosity and conservation for the aquatic animal world. Home to 32,000 aquatic animals representing 1,500 species of fishes, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, birds and mammals from waters around the globe, Shedd is a recognized leader in animal care, conservation education and research. An accredited member of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) and the first U.S. aquarium to be awarded the Humane Conservation™ certification mark for the care and welfare of its animals by American Humane. The organization is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institute, and is supported by the people of Chicago, the State of Illinois and the Chicago Park District. More information is available at www.sheddaquarium.org.
