The folks at Conley Sports–our clients in Austin, Texas–are truly committed to doing their best to stage a sustainable event.

Recognized by Runner’s World Magazine as the Greenest Race in North America in 2008, the Austin Marathon and Half Marathon issued a press release today detailing efforts to raise the bar and make the 2009 event even more environmentally friendly.

It all starts with a dedicated Green Team and a focus on eliminating unnecessary waste and pollution at every turn:

Major reductions will come from less plastic waste at water stops, fewer supply vehicles, eliminating paper inserts in the runners’ goodie bags, and distributing only one plastic bag to runners throughout race weekend (with instructions for ways to reuse it after the race).

A key component of Austin’s efforts this year goes beyond just being green: race organizers are seeking third-party certification of their efforts from the Council for Responsible Sport. ReSport Certification is making its public debut this year, after conducting a pilot program in 2008. Participation from events like the Austin Marathon will surely help raise this budding non-profit’s profile in the running world.

Who knows, the next time Runner’s World ranks green races, maybe they’ll base those rankings on points earned in the ReSport Certification process? Hope so.

For a full accounting of Austin’s green initiatives, please download the green-team-release.pdf.

As mentioned in the previous post, the November issue of Runner’s World listed the 10 Greenest Races in the U.S. No doubt every race on the list deserved recognition for the good work they are doing, but there are a lot of other races across the country–and around the world–that are also doing their part to minimize their environmental impact. So how are we to know which races are truly the greenest?

One thing is for sure: objective measures are needed if the running media is going to be promoting one race as being greener than another.

I’m a big fan of the Council for Responsible Sport and their ReSport Certification program for participant sporting events. Their five metrics and the standards they are developing would be a much better way to figure out which races are the greenest than a simple review of what the races have to say for themselves in press releases.

Here’s hoping that next year Runner’s World will base their top-10 on the number of points participating races earn in the ReSport certification process.

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?