by Andrea Learned

I just read the great Grist piece by Andrew Zaleski: Go, Fight… Green? His point about the work needed in order to green professional sports is: how much can we really expect the Bud-drinking, Cracker Jack-eating crowds to care about the environment (or the fact that a stadium is becoming more energy efficient and composting food waste, for example)? One of the obstacles he mentions comes via a study by OgilvyEarth, which found that 82 percent of responders viewed “going green” as girly. Yikes.

What those involved in greening sports venues are hoping (and getting help from The Green Sports Alliance to do) is that greener consumer behavior might come to be seen as less “Seattle treehugger” and more social norm by these simple nudges that encourage composting, recycling or a similar attitude change. I could go on and on because I find this challenge so intriguing, but instead let’s just say I spy an opportunity through my gender lens.

If going green is seen as “girly,” why not look to the “girls” who are pro sports fans? It is not that the percentage of women in those ranks comes close to meeting that number for men, but that the women who ARE fans have a lot of influence over how their households are run, and how their families live their lives. Women are raising tomorrow’s sports fans, so why not get their help shaping their kids to be the future’s more compost-loving and recycling aware “butts” in stadium seats?

Sustainability is a movement, not something that we’ll see the mass population embrace over night. If those of us working for change can stand the fact that there will be no immediate and visibly huge shift in consumer behavior in our lifetimes (let’s face it), we should lay some good groundwork for future generations. In that way, you and I and the sports venues/teams looking to go green might not want to obsess about converting today’s sports fans from their fear of “girly green,” but focus on engaging with those “green girls” who can influence fans to come.

Photo by Audrey Pilato/flickr/Creative Commons