Hi there! My name is Lowell and I’m a current junior in the sport management program here at OU. I just wanted to take a second and let you know about a rising issue that’s affecting our industry; environmental sustainability. As a high school student, I know you probably could care less about environmental sustainability, but before you crumble this paper up and throw it in the trash, let me tell you why going green will help advance your career. As a soon-to-be-student in this field, you will one day be part of the generation that keeps this industry functioning. I want to make you aware of this issue, because some day, you will hold the power to create change.
Let me start you off with a broad definition of environmental sustainability. While living on this planet, every living being leaves a footprint behind. The goal of sustainability is to minimize this footprint by using fewer resources, so that future generations will have those same materials during their lives. Since most students our age don’t care about sustainability, this could separate you from the other 400 people in our program alone, and provide a route to success. You might ask, how so?
Being environmentally friendly can help the bottom line of the organization you will work for one day. While people our age focus on sales, customer service, marketing, and other ways to add value to an organization, I encourage you do the same, but from a different perspective. As you learn how operate a franchise, think about ways to keep your team running at a cheaper cost. You should realize that by going green, you can have twice the impact on your company’s bottom line. Something as simple as changing light bulbs to become more energy efficient will save money because they last longer and use less energy. Power companies will start paying you if you install enough solar panels because you’ll have the potential to create more energy than you consume. Also, using appliances that run on less energy will drive costs down. These are just a few ideas to improve the current unsustainability of sport.
Currently, sport is almost completely unsustainable. Take a look at stadia for example, the main problem in the sport industry today. They use a huge amount of materials to build, they consume a large number of resources to keep operating, and then they’re destroyed after a while and replaced with a newer, sometimes larger one. In the New York – New Jersey area, six new stadiums have been built since 2007, and one more is currently under construction. In international sport, countries like Qatar have earned bids to host high-scale events with promised plans to build new stadia for the event. Then, for three weeks or so, hundreds of thousands of people travel to that country to catch the event in-person. But what happens after that? Are the stadia left there to decay?
So let me challenge you over the next few years, as you take classes here at OU, to think about how we can improve sustainability in our industry. In SASM 376 – facility planning and management, think about how we can operate buildings in a more efficient manner. When you take SASM 412 – sport governance and ethics, try to come up with ways to incorporate sustainability while crafting missions, goals, and objectives. Ask your teacher, probably Dr. Yiamouyiannis, why it would be important to do this? Becoming sustainable is a complete alteration in our lifestyle. Making this change surely will not happen overnight. I’m not sure how we can change to become more sustainable… I have a few ideas but I can’t do this on my own. That’s why I’m telling you; because we need more people our age to start brainstorming how we can create this change during our reign as industry leaders. If we continue to live as unsustainably as we are today, we will eventually be unable to survive. As future leaders we need to incorporate greener organizational goals to save our earth. More relevant to us, we have a way to drive down costs, use this knowledge to your advantage! Start small; change light bulbs and appliances to become more energy efficient and less expensive. After that, keep it going. Becoming sustainable is an on-going process.
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