04/18/24
September 14, 2005
Green Goal™.: FIFA has announced an initiative to make next summer's World Cup climate neutral. They're teaming up with the United Nations Environmental Program and Germany's Environmental Minister to assess the games’ environmental impact and develop the Green Goal initiative for offsetting the estimated 100,000 metric tons of greenhouse gasses expected to be emitted by the event’s activity. Unlike past climate neutral events, like the G8 summit, Green Goal is looking to find a new way to offset emissions...(more inside)
posted by Ufez Jones to soccer at 10:47 AM - 9 comments
Right on! The good old U.S. of A. could learn a lesson in this.
posted by supersly26 at 11:48 AM on September 14, 2005
This is very, very good, although they don't need the excuse of a soccer tournament to exercise that kind of goodwill. Not that I'm checking the gift horse for cavities. This is an excellent example of how initiatives like this are actually doable. How I would love to see, oh, the Super Bowl do something similar. To compensate for the energy they waste, they'd be irrigating the Sahara and converting the whole thing to rainforest inside of a decade.
posted by chicobangs at 01:12 PM on September 14, 2005
Football chico baby, football. :) What a blinking great idea. Well done FIFA.
posted by squealy at 01:43 PM on September 14, 2005
How I would love to see, oh, the Super Bowl do something similar. Or Nascar, Kart, F1 or any other motorsports circuit. If they could come up with the funding, I'd love to see someone like, say, the Sierra Club sponsor a team and make it the first carbon neutral or negative racing squad. It'd not only raise awareness of their cause to a new demographic, it'd raise light to the issue of how much crap those sports are spewing into our ecosystem.
posted by Ufez Jones at 02:29 PM on September 14, 2005
Great article Ufez....you just reminded me of why I signed up for SpoFi. Thanks...
posted by smithers at 03:11 PM on September 14, 2005
That FIFA site won't load (paging Kaka2002!) but my questions are if they are including: - the impact of all the long distance travel by spectators, media and teams to get to Germany, and, - the same quantities for all the qualifying matches
posted by billsaysthis at 03:36 PM on September 14, 2005
squaealy: I was using my dumb-american voice. You like?
posted by chicobangs at 06:06 PM on September 14, 2005
It suits you sir.
posted by squealy at 05:52 AM on September 15, 2005
In the past, initiatives such as this have used the planting of trees to achieve carbon-neutrality. However, FIFA and its partners have gone beyond that to help homes in Tamil Nadu, India, a region hit particularly hard by the Tsunami. Under the program, homes in the region will receive biogas equipment, which converts cow manure into gas for cooking (you can see a sample diagram here). All of which is to say...good on them.