According to a story in today’s Waste & Recycling News, America’s major sports leagues (NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA and MLS) are encouraging their teams to begin using solar power. While this initiative isn’t about the greening of mass participant sporting events, it certainly is a step worth noting – and applauding.

The leagues recently distributed a solar development guide produced on their behalf by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) outlining the work necessary for each stadium to add on-site solar power generation to its energy mix.

Kudos to all the acronyms listed above – and apologies for assuming the reader knows what they all mean!

The recently concluded Summer National Senior Games in Palo Alto, California, displayed a broad and consistent commitment to sustainability. From Sunny, the 2009 Senior Games Mascot, to the solar-powered torch and cauldron (pictured below), organizers were serious about impressing upon us seniors the value of pursuing sustainable actions — and they did it in an innovative and lighthearted way.

You probably can’t read the sign above, but it talks about the departure from traditional fossil-fuel burning torches typically used at the Olympic Games and other major sporting events. For these Games, the torch was powered by the sun and lit with LED lights (sorry no picture, I didn’t arrive in time for the torch relay), while the cauldron is made up of some 800  tiny mirrors that reflect the sun’s energy. Solar panels built into the cauldron capture energy from the sun throughout the day, so the cauldron can glow at night. The torch and cauldron were created by the folks at IDEO.

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