How Sustainable Are 2024 NCAA Men’s And Women’s Final Four?
This weekend March Madness culminates in the men’s Final Four in Phoenix, Arizona, and the women’s Final Four in Cleveland, Ohio. We love seeing high performance and impact on the court, but what are the NCAA and this year’s hosts doing to reduce environmental impact off the court?
Men’s Final Four
The Phoenix local organizing committee are ‘committed to mitigating the environmental impact of hosting the 2024 Men’s Final Four and creating a green legacy in the community.’ Efforts include community greening events to increase pollinator habitats, planting trees and building community gardens. Food recovery will be prioritised, with surplus food from events during the week of Men’s Final Four being donated to local non-profits in partnership with Waste Not, United Food Bank and St. Mary’s Food Bank.
Waste diversion will avoid useful materials ending up in landfill. Reusable materials from the Final Four events including décor, carpet, signs and lumber will be collected and donated locally for reuse and repurposing. Keep Phoenix Beautiful’s iRecycle Phoenix Events is enabling members of the community to drop off used electronics, bikes, food, clothing, books, office supplies, school supplies, furniture and more.
Women’s Final Four
The NCAA Women’s Final Four, hosted at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio, will have a Green Team, where volunteers placed throughout the arena to help fans recycle. Signage and recycling bins for the Party on the Plaza fan event outside the arena will enable fans to recycle bottles, cans, and plastic cups. RMFH will actively work to find outlets for any materials that may be donated to local organizations upon the completion of the event.
“Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse is proud to partner with Coca-Cola and the NCAA to promote sustainability. We are excited to continue this impactful work beyond the Final Four as we enhance our own sustainability practices at the FieldHouse. RMFH is committed to sustainability and thankful for our partners who support continuous improvement,” said Danielle Doza, VP of sustainability and environmental services for Cleveland Cavaliers.
Waste diversion is not new to RMFH. In 2023, they converted 77,762 pounds of food waste into compost, which turned into soil to be used in the community. 7,500 pounds of e-waste was collected by the arena for recycling on America Recycles Day.
Is It Enough?
Sustainability initiatives form part of the bid process for NCAA Championships. The NCAA began incorporating sustainability criteria in its Final Four bid specifications for host cities following what was cited at the time as the ‘greenest Final Four in history,’ hosted in 2013 at Georgia World Congress Center Authority’s Atlanta campus.
Tim Trefzer, who previously served as head of sustainability for NCAA men’s Final Four local organising committee in 2013, and the architect of the greenest Final Four at that time recently told me, ‘Sustainability efforts by Final Four are organised by local organising committees, which can mean year-on-year learnings and benchmarking can be lost, consistency is difficult and efforts vary from city to city.’
We can ill afford to lose these benchmarking and learnings. According to research undertaken by Brian P. McCullough of Texas A&M University and Alex Cooper, March Madness in 2019 released an estimated 463 million pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions into the atmosphere. Similar to the emissions of a large university for an entire year. The research showed 79.95% of carbon emissions came from fan and team travel, hotel stays accounted for 6.83%, 6.37% came from food, 5.9% from stadium operations and 0.95% from general waste.
What’s The Game Plan?
Waste reduction, reuse, diversion and recycling are essential for Final Four hosts or any large sports tournament. Nevertheless, according to this carbon emissions analysis, reductions in other areas could be more significant. Travel emissions pose the greatest challenge for national and international sports, and McCullough recommends organisers ‘consider more regional placements to reduce the distances fans and teams must travel’.
Alongside systemic changes such as this, efforts could be supported and scaled by many. Trefzer shared what he thinks the future could look like, ‘68 universities participate, which provides a great opportunity to connect passionate young people all over the US with sustainability initiatives, create legacy and have them get involved in helping solve some of the issues we face.’
Taking inspiration from the Read to The Final Four literacy challenge, which encourages third graders to develop their reading abilities with the chance to win prizes and compete to be named the Championship school, what could a Green to The Final Four sustainability challenge look like? A campaign to encourage and inspire hosts, venues, colleges, sponsors and brands to reduce impacts and emissions from the start of March Madness through to Final Four. Now that would be a slam dunk for the environment.
