NBA Going Green for All-Star Events

This weekend’s NBA All-Star events will be the greenest ever, as the league takes unprecedented steps to make the festivities more eco-friendly. The NBA is buying green energy credits to offset the power it will use at the US Airways Center and the Phoenix Convention Center. They’ll also increase recycling and use Suns stars for a green public service announcement. Today, the NBA is building a playground in Phoenix as a community service project with post-consumer products.

From The Arizona Republic:

“We recognize that a lot of the efforts around our games and the transportation and the use of arenas … (that) there is a lot of energy use involved in that,” said Kathy Behrens, a senior vice president of the NBA, which organizes several days of All-Star festivities before the game, which will be played Sunday.

Sports teams could be extremely influential environmental figures, sports-marketing expert Ray Artigue says.

“They can use the amazing interest in sports as an educational platform to change people’s habits,” said Artigue, executive director of the NBA sports-business program at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business.

The green energy credits purchased by the NBA will fund a yet-to-be-determined green energy project. The Suns are also beefing up their own green efforts, with plants to install solar panels on the center’s garage this summer. Last December, the Suns began recycling plastic bottles and aluminum cans discarded in the center’s public areas.

This should serve as a great example to sports teams around the world – hopefully the All-Star events will get even greener in 2010!

Link [The Arizona Republic]

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