Tomorrow Sounders FC takes on the Portland Timbers. The score on the pitch is TBD. But the score in the sky is already settled. Sorry, Portland.
You see, this year Sounders FC decided to do something big about the carbon it puts in the atmosphere: Offset it. All of it. It was the first soccer team — in fact the first team in all of major league sports in the U.S. — to make such a commitment. It won them a huge honor back in May from the Green Sports Alliance, the Environmental Innovators Award.
As to Portland, which prides itself on eco-leadership... Well, what can we say? If they're green, then it's green with envy. ;)
Key to Sounders FC's achievement is Forterra's Evergreen Carbon Capture (ECC) program. By planting trees, ECC helps the team offset the carbon it can't otherwise eliminate. (The whole effort started with a carbon audit led by experts from Sustainable Business Consulting. It analyzed every aspect of team operations: paper and energy use, waste and recycling policies, employee commuting, game-day travel by players and fans, and more.)
Maybe it’s no surprise that, on carbon, Sounders FC has bested the Timbers. In a recent ranking of the nation’s greenest municipalities, the Emerald City easily outdid the Rose City.
On the other hand, both of us could do better. Seattle rated 8th and Portland 10th. Washington DC beat us both. What?!
If you want to do your personal bit to help Greater Seattle climb the list, here’s an idea: Offset your personal carbon contribution with a gift to the Evergreen Carbon Capture Program. Our easy carbon-footprint calculator will get you started.
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Early this spring, Coach Brian Schmetzer and players Alex Roldan and Cristian Roldan joined Forterra, DIRT Corps, and more than a hundred Sounders FC fans at Hamm Creek just off the Duwamish River. The day’s goal: make a start on Sounders FC’s carbon-neutral commitment by planting hundreds of small cedars and hemlocks. In the decades to come these saplings will grow into carbon-gulping giants.
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