Tri Sustainability Initiative

When you stop and think about it, sporting events don’t exactly fall into the realm of sustainable efforts. Most sporting events use massive amounts of electricity, bring large numbers of people (and their cars) to a sometimes far away stadium, and then proceed to sell everything under the sun in disposable containers. Or, if individual sports like running or mulitsport are more your thing, athletes come from all over the country and you still run into the issues of disposable race materials and crowds overusing an environment for a weekend or so.

There’s a Boulder-based organization that’s trying to change all of that, though. The Tri Sustainability Initiative, an offshoot of Boulder-based multisport event planning company 5430 Sports, was created with the sole purpose of bringing sustainable practices to an area where they’ve been sorely lacking: sports. Through the Tri Sustainability Initiative, 5430 Sports has already planned and executed a series of triathlons utilizing a zero waste and carbon neutral plan of sustainable practices.

5430 Sports has partnered with other organizations such as Start Global Cooling, an effort from Clif Bar, to sell Cool Tags. Each $2 cool tag from NativeEnergy keeps approximately 300lbs. of CO2 out of the atmosphere. They’ve also partnered with Eco-Cycle, Eco-Products, and Whole Foods Markets to make their race practices as environmentally friendly as possible.

By their estimate, the Tri Sustainability Initiative has already saved 3.15 tons of carbon dioxide emissions through their event practices and they’ve sold enough Cool Tags to offset more than 28,000 miles of driving. Now, if they could just get the NY Marathon planning committee to follow suit…