Green Teams to promote sustainability at Major League Baseball games

An initiative to promote sustainability called the Green Teams is taking place every year at the Major League Baseball All-Star games.

This July for the games in San Diego, the third group of students from the University of Minnesota in partnership with local students will go and help divert more than a tonne of recyclables from the landfills.

Tiffany Richardson, sport management lecturer in the School of Kinesiology of University of Minnesota says: “Whenever you’re bringing together mass amounts of people in a building, there’s going to be a lot of waste.”

Sustainability in sports has a growing importance, and it covers things such as recycling and composting at games, but is also involves efforts in renewable energy, healthier food, water efficiency, safer chemical use, and species preservation.

Minnesota’s Target Field has its own sustainability initiatives—such as water-efficient landscaping and recycling stations.

Green Sport Alliance is a major organisation in the sector promoting sustainability efforts related to sports, and the Major League Baseball is part of it with its 30 clubs.

Green teams serve the organisation’s purposes and they have worked together for about 10 years.

University of Minnesota student need to register to a summer course with a strong drive on sustainability and they are trained in a pre-game preparation on sports sustainability, in order to acquire the necessary knowledge to be part of the Green teams and promote sustainability at the games.

About sixty students will take part in the initiative this summer.