One of the great things about the recent How Green is Your Event workshop was the opportunity it provided for environmentally conscious race directors to get to know each other and begin to build community. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve heard from a number of participants–all of them eager to tap into the collective knowledge and creativity of the group.

Peggy Rogers, Community Outreach Director for the ING Georgia Marathon & Half Marathon, actually sent along a specific query:

Does anyone know a provider of functionality to enable race participants to view and print their own finisher certificate from the event’s website? As a green advocate, and to reduce costs, our race would like to provide online finisher certificates rather than print and mail certificates, since not all participants are interested in receiving finisher certificates.

As a runner, I have used this functionality but I don’t remember at which marathon, perhaps the 2006 New Las Vegas Marathon.

I’d like to hear from anyone whose race has provided online finisher certificates and how you performed this function.

Thanks for any information or leads that you can provide.

Not only is this a great idea, but it’s a perfect example of how like-minded folks can help each other achieve a common goal of more environmentally responsible event production. It is also the perfect example of how Lee and I hope folks will use this Web site.

If anyone has a lead for Peggy, please use the comments feature below this post to respond.

Some of the most progressive road races in the US were in attendance at last weekend’s Road Race Management workshop on green running events. Everyone had good news and great ideas to share, but I was most impressed by the strides these three events are making:

The AT&T Austin Marathon is a member of the Greenteam that’s being promoted by Runner’s World and Nature’s Path Organic–the only concerted effort I’ve seen that draws attention to the good work many events are doing. (In fact, absent a sponsor conflict with Nature’s Path, I cannot see why every event that is making tangible progress toward environmentally responsible goals and objectives wouldn’t want to be a part of the Greenteam.)

In addition to being a Greenteam member, the AT&T Austin Marathon features a few green innovations that didn’t show up anywhere else in my pre-workshop survey of running events:

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