Pro Sports Issues Energy Guidebook, Claps Back At Project 2025

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Oh the irony, it burns. Everyone is talking about Project 2025, the ultra-conservative plan for rolling back the energy transition, among other questionable goals. Well, two can play at that game. The influential Green Sports Alliance has a plan of its own, which consists of aggressively pursuing decarbonization opportunities at public venues. To the surprise of no-one, that includes Fiserv Forum, home of the Milwaukee Bucks and the site of the 2024 Republican National Convention. Take that, haters.

Pro Sports & The Energy Decarbonization Playbook

The Green Sports Alliance launched in 2010 to rally the efforts of professional sports teams, clean tech industry stakeholders, environmental organizations, and anyone else with an interest in renewable energy and sustainability.

The GSA has developed several action plans over the years. The latest one is the “Energy Decarbonization Playbook” for sports and entertainment venues, which the organization announced over the newswires on July 16, smack in the middle of the 2024 Republican National Convention.

GSA describes the document as an effort to “transform energy consumption and decarbonization strategies in our venues” that sets a “new standard for environmental stewardship in the sports and entertainment industry.”

GSA Executive Director Roger McClendon emphasizes that its members — and there are lots of them aside from Fiserv Forum and the Milwaukee Bucks — are determined to take the climate challenge head on.

“In an era where the impact of climate change is felt across the glove [sic], it is incumbent upon us, as leaders in the sports industry, to spearhead transformative initiatives that inspire change and contribute to a more sustainable planet,” he said.

McClendon probably meant “across the globe.” Either way, his statement presents quite a contrast with the official Republican Party platform for 2024, which has been described as “sub-kindergarten gibberish” and “an all-caps mess of Trumpian promises” by USA Today columnist Rex Huppke.

What Is The Energy Decarbonization Playbook?

To be fair, the whole 2024 Republican Party platform is not actually all caps, just some of it. “We will DRILL, BABY, DRILL and we will become Energy Independent, and even Dominant again,” reads an introductory section on energy policy, such as it is. If it helps, think of it as a vigorously dumbed-down version of the meticulous details outlined in Project 2025.

“Project 2025 advocates for the deprioritization — and, in some cases, the elimination — of the study of climate science and contingency planning for climate impacts across agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency; the Commerce, Defense, and Energy departments; the Council on Environmental Quality; and the National Security Council,” explains the organization Covering Climate Now.

GSA’s Energy Decarbonization Playbook says the opposite. With the Playbook, GSA makes the case for putting sports and entertainment venues in the vanguard of climate action. “A venue can consume as much energy during a single football game as 10,000 homes would use in the same period,” GSA explains. “Given the scale of energy consumption, addressing energy decarbonization is critical and offers significant opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.”

“Globally, the burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions (34%),” they emphasize, adding that venue managers “need to understand and manage the environmental effects of these various energy sources.”

Roger McClendon chipped in his two cents in an introductory message, explaining that the Playbook is based on “our unwavering belief that sustainability and sporting excellence are not mutually exclusive.”

“Rather, they are symbiotic, creating a powerful synergy that enhances the overall experience for athletes, fans, and the communities we serve,” he added.

The Energy Decarbonization Playbook is not asking for the moon. GSA makes the case for deploying systems and technologies that are well in hand, including greenhouse gas tracking and benchmarking, shifting to 100% renewable energy and full electrification, and building more resiliency into a venue.

Energy Decarbonization, One Step At A Time

GSA is also not asking for an overnight change, and Fiserve Forum is a good example of step-by-step progress. The venue opened in 2018 and earned a LEED Silver rating from the US Green Buildings Council the following year, indicating high performance in the area of energy conservation and other sustainability elements. In January of 2022 Fiserv stepped up to LEED Gold certification, crediting a comprehensive, LEED-aligned monitoring system called Arc for the improved rating.

“Working closely with Greenwood Consulting Group, a certified women’s owned sustainability consulting firm with over 16-years of experience, Fiserv Forum decided to pursue recertification of both buildings using the Arc platform to get a more comprehensive understanding of how the buildings continue to perform in other areas beyond energy use,” Fiserv explains.

“Arc also allows owners to understand the carbon impact associated with a building’s performance over time and gives an initial score of 0-100 which can be improved throughout the years,” Fiserve observes.

“Fiserv Forum is leading the charge to transform the market when it comes to sustainable building performance,” they emphasize.

For the record, Fiserv (the company, not the venue) has not been listening to the “anti-woke” chatter issuing from conservative circles. Details about the firm’s corporate social responsibility commitments are readily available online, regardless of what people say about ESG (environment, social, governance) investing and DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) initiatives.

Common Sense & The Energy Transition

In the context of Hurricane Beryl and other ongoing climate-related crises, the law of common sense certainly applies to Fiserv and other GSA members: when you see a problem, you take steps to fix it.

That’s not the only law of common sense, though. In his column for USA Today, for example, Huppke points out that while some words in the Republican platform are all-caps, many others appear to be randomly capitalized. One phase that sticks out like a sore thumb is “Common Sense tells us clearly,” which is repeated throughout the introduction like a mantra.

Coincidentally or not, Common Sense is the title of a 47-page pamphlet published in America on January 10, 1776. The author, Thomas Paine, immigrated to the colonies from England barely two years beforehand. In Common Sense, he outlines the case for full independence from British rule. The slim volume was received to wild acclaim, and the rest is history (full text here).

In the context of a partisan political document in 2024, “Common Sense” is a rather fraught phrase to choose. It evokes the old “stand back and stand by” directive issued by former President Trump to the extremist group Proud Boys during a televised debate with Joe Biden back in 2020. As for what the Proud Boys were supposed to wait for, that question has been answered.

“The Justice Department proved in court that the Proud Boys played a central role in setting the January 6th attack on our Capitol into motion,” US Attorney Merrick Garland stated in a press release issued on September 5, 2023.

Just saying. Am I reading too much into this? If you have any thoughts about that, drop a note in the comment thread.

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Image (screenshot): The influential Green Sports Alliance has issued a guidebook to help sports and entertainment venues to accelerate the transition to renewable energy and electrification (courtesy of GSA).