Fourth down and climate risks for the National Football League
The NFL’s green extra point attempt
The National Football League (NFL) is known for organising some of the world’s largest sports events every year, such as the Super Bowl, the Pro Bowl, and the NFL Draft. Since 1993, the league has been working to reduce the environmental impact of these events.
The NFL’s sustainability programme, NFL Green, has been set up so that the league can collaborate with local communities, non-profit organisations, and sponsors to tackle the emissions arising from these events. Here’s how they’re doing it:
Food recovery: Partnerships are established with local food banks to ensure that leftover food from these events can be safely distributed to those in need. The impact potential is massive, as events such as the Super Bowl can generate 63.5 tonnes of donatable food and beverages.
Material recovery: With tonnes of materials left over after these events, the NFL ensures they are donated to non-profit organisations such as Habitat for Humanity and the Salvation Army. This prevents these materials from ending up in landfills.
Community greening: The NFL works with local organisations and parks and recreation departments from the communities around the games to plant trees, create community gardens, and participate in reforestation projects.
Another key theme for NFL Green is renewable energy. They purchase renewable energy certificates to match their energy consumption, which can play a role in accelerating the country’s clean energy transition.
This year’s Super Bowl, which pitted the San Francisco 49ers against the Kansas City Chiefs at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, made headlines as it was the first Super Bowl powered by 100% renewable electricity.
NFL stadiums are in the red zone
While the NFL has implemented some climate change mitigation efforts, its teams’ stadiums have recently been in the spotlight concerning the other side of the climate equation: climate change adaptation.
Climate X, experts in climate risk analysis, recently conducted a study to explore the 30 NFL stadiums’ exposure to economic losses due to climate change risks, including floods, wildfires, droughts and extreme heat.
Some of the most exposed stadiums are the New Orleans Saints’ Caesars Superdome, the Houston Texans’ NRG Park and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ EverBank Stadium. This is undoubtedly due to their exposure to tropical cyclones and storms in the south of the United States.
However, MetLife Stadium, home to the New York Jets and Giants, SoFi Stadium of the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers, and the Arizona Cardinals’ State Farm Stadium are expected to suffer the most severe economic losses.
For these three stadiums alone, financial losses of up to $11bn are projected by 2050 in a “business as usual” scenario where no major efforts are made to reduce the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. That’s something to think about for the 5 NFL teams relying on this infrastructure.
These extreme weather events could cause significant damage to NFL assets, and the importance of this goes way beyond sports. As we saw during Hurricane Katrina, stadiums such as the New Orleans Saints were being transformed into last-resort shelters for communities seeking safety.
With the risks laid out in the open, the NFL teams are now encouraged to implement climate change adaptation strategies to reduce their infrastructure’s exposure to economic losses generated by extreme weather events.
