Shooting for Sustainability

Basketball is one of my favorite sports. I have always found it exciting and fast paced. Never a dull moment. Also, it’s the first sporting event that I ever went to. A Knicks basketball game at Madison Square Garden. I remember going with my family – each of us dressed up in matching Knicks jerseys. Not quite sure my brother would ever agree to do that again, so it’s nice that we had the experience at least once. We took a train into the city, grabbed a hot pretzel from the street vendor and of course had to purchase those giant orange and blue Knicks number one foam fingers to root on our team. The experience was thrilling from beginning to end. It solidified my love of the game. And even though our family are die-hard Knicks fans, we all love basketball in general, so we try to see a basketball game whenever visiting another state. Last year we were in California and went to an LA Lakers game at the Crypto.com arena (which by the way seems like an odd name for an arena). Lebron James was playing. Need I say more! I may be a Knicks fan, but I can fully appreciate the magic displayed by Lebron on the court. 

Anyway, I was already a huge fan when I got an email from the NBA about their sustainability initiatives and goals. The NBA Go Green program is dedicated to promoting environmental sustainability. Using the power of basketball for the greater good. Well, I knew I was a fan for a reason. So, after I read the email, I decided to read about their green activities online. I went to their website and started with their social impact report. First of all, I was amazed by all of their programs as I read through the report. I had absolutely no idea about all of the projects that the NBA hosts, from NBA Cares to NBA in the Classroom to NBA Mind Health and so much more. It’s extremely impressive. 

Then I found what I was looking for – NBA Green. The NBA Green program is dedicated to using the power of basketball to drive environmental progress. In April 2023, the NBA Arena Sustainability Task Force was launched with the goal of reducing the carbon footprint of all of the NBA arenas. Every single one of the arenas participate. Looking into ways to reduce their greenhouse emissions, they are reviewing everything from league events to business operations to team flights with the goal of a 50% reduction in their carbon footprint by the yare 2030. They are also partnering with organizations to raise awareness about environment and climate justice. Last year they recovered 4,000 pounds of food from their games and provided approximately 3,400 meals to communities in need which also in turn saved approximately 1.15 metric tons from being dumped into our landfills. If you have read my blog or received an email from me regarding my fundraising efforts to prevent waste from ending up in our landfills, you know how seriously I take this issue. I have to say that reading about all they have done in the short time since the commencement of their taskforce is pretty impressive. Fast paced just like the NBA. 

An organization as large as the NBA can make a considerable difference in our environment and helping create a greener future. Let me give you a little bit of a perspective. There are 30 NBA teams, and each team plays 82 games during the regular season. Then of course there are the play-offs. But let’s just start with the regular season for these purposes – at a minimum there are 82 games x 15 teams (there are 30 teams, but they play each other) totaling 1,230 games per year. The arenas are located in 22 states across the country and Canada. Spanning a very large geographical area. If you are wondering like I was why there are 30 teams and 22 states, it’s because some states have more than one arena like CA, NY, TX and FL and two CA teams share the CA Crypto.com arena. Just a little NBA trivia. Another bit of interesting trivia before I continue is that my hometown arena of Madison Square Garden is the oldest arena. Anyway, back to the point of the blog. Thinking about the sheer magnitude in numbers –number of individuals attending each of these 1,230 games, the amount of food and drink consumed by each of these individuals, the transportation to get to the events (both for team members and for attendees), the amount of swag sold at these events, and these are just a few of the items that I can think of off of the top of my head – these amounts have a substantial effect on our climate and our environment. So, they do need to be addressed and rectified if we are going to help build a better planet for future generations and the fact that an organization as large as the NBA is doing just that gives me hope for our future and hope that other large organizations will follow suit. 

The point of this blog was not just to tell you all about the NBA’s initiatives (which you should know about) but, to also recommend that you support an organization like the NBA that is doing so much to help our planet. You can buy a ticket and go to a game or if you are not a fan, you can even use your words to write to them with recommendations of additional actions that they can take to address our environmental crisis. 

So, whether you are a basketball fan or not, I think we can all relate to this lingo. These actions may not be a SLAM DUNK for our future, but they will definitely ASSIST so don’t take the easy LAY UP approach – maybe, just maybe if we all work hard, we can grab a SWISH shot right before the BUZZER BEATER.