Lee and I strive to provide valuable counsel to participant sporting events that are trying to clean up their act. But we’re far from being the only experts in this field. So when we discover useful resource materials, we’re pleased to share them with our clients and visitors to this Web site.

In 2002, Robin Hawley, an old friend and former colleague of Lee’s developed a recycling guide for Portland, Oregon’s Race For The Cure. Robin has worked extensively in the recycling field since receiving her Masters in Public Administration from Portland State University in 1998. She worked on the commercial recycling program for the Office of Sustainable Development for the City of Portland from 2000 until 2003, then joined the regional government, Metro, and took over responsibility for improving business recycling in the Portland region from 2003 to 2005. During that time she was also the lead individual responsible for event day recycling for the Susan G. Komen Foundation Race For The Cure, in Portland, Oregon. This event, with over 42,000 participants, achieved notable recovery while Robin was overseeing the recycling operations, recovering 72% of their waste while only landfilling 28%! Ms. Hawley is currently employed by Ecos Consulting, running the Program Management Office.

Thanks to Robin, here’s the link to a PDF that’s chock full of tips and stats for those of you who are trying to set up or improve your event’s waste management systems: race-for-the-cure-recycling-guide.pdf

In the preceding post, I mentioned that there’s a movement afoot to reduce the impact of running events, triathlons, bike races and the like. One of the driving forces behind this nascent movement is the Council for Responsible Sport.

Jeff Henderson and Jonathan Eng launched the Council in September 2007 with the thought that the broader world of sport could do with a little cleaning. To that end, they’ve developed a draft set of standards for green event certification which can be viewed here. The key word in the previous sentence is the word DRAFT. Jeff and Jonathan are sincere in wanting these standards to be objective, transparent and inclusive and, thus, are encouraging folks to comment on the draft standards using this form.

I’ve already let them know how I think the standards should be tweaked. Why don’t you take a few minutes to do so as well?