The Greening of College Sports took off in 2008 with the launch of Ralphie’s Green Stampede* at the University of Colorado-Boulder. The program, named after the CU Buffalo’s mascot, created a green sponsorship category that brought in a variety of environmentally friendly brands as partners. It showed that “doing good” could also mean “doing well” for an athletics department from a financial point of view. Problem is that Green sponsorship momentum has largely stalled over the last two decades in college sports. To see what can be done to change that and inject new “follow the money” momentum into the […]

Will climate change’s significant impacts on the extreme heat that is expected to descend on the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup, which kicks off next Thursday in Mexico City, become a subject that breaks through among players, fans, and media during the the world’s most popular sporting event? Meteorologist and climate communicator Shel Winkley shares how Climate Central, through the recent publication of two studies, aims to garner significant worldwide attention among players, media, and fans by showing how 1) extreme heat will likely impact player performance in the world’s most popular sporting event on site-by-site, game-by-game basis, and 2) […]

Michael Meneshian has become a Green-Sports leader in college athletics in just over a year’s time. The senior on the Cornell University rowing team is one of the driving forces of CSAS — Cornell Student-Athletes for Sustainability — a club that has grown to over 150 student-athletes since its founding in August 2024. And he has worked to accelerate the #ClimateComeback as an EcoAthletes Champion. He took his Green-Sports game to the next level when he became the rare student-athlete to take part in COP30, the often controversial UN annual global climate conference, last month in Belem, Brazil. GreenSportsPod talked […]

The Green Sports Alliance (GSA)has been a consistent force at the intersection of Green + Sports over its 16 year existence. Its Summit is an annual must-attend event for venue, team and Green-Sports startup executives as well as a cadre of talented, passionate people looking to accelerate the #ClimateComeback. Given the strong headwinds the Green-Sports space is facing from a US administration that is hostile to almost all things sustainability, and given the transition the GSA is going through as it searches for a new executive director, we thought now is the perfect time to talk with GSA board chair […]

The list of corporations, including those in the athletic apparel industry, that announce ambitious climate commitments is long. Sadly and not surprisingly, the number of corporations that actually make good on those pronouncements is much, much shorter. Given the massive scale of our climate crises, this has to change — and fast. Enter Ruth MacGilp, a climate campaigner who works to hold apparel companies to account for their climate commitments for the aptly named environmental nonprofit Action Speaks Louder (ASL) and today’s guest on GreenSportsPod. Our conversation dives into the unique role athletes can play to help push athletic apparel […]

Founder and CEO of Sport Positive. Forbes contributing writer. Green-Sports leader. Force of nature. Claire Poole is all those things and more, as you will hear in today’s wide-ranging GreenSportsPod conversation. We discuss: What led her to launch Sport Positive How this year’s Sport Positive Summit — which takes place October 7-8 in London — will approach the gale force anti-climate action headwinds, powered by Trump 2.0 and other collaborators around the world. The serious personal health issue Claire has faced over the past year, including how she is doing and how her experience has changed her view of how […]

EcoAthletes Champions and longtime pro soccer stars Jasmyne “Jas” Spencer and Savannah “Sav” McCaskill used their complementary skills to great effect on the pitch when they played together with Angel City FC in the NWSL in 2022-23: Jas, a 12 year NWSL vet who now plays with Vancouver Rise FC in the new and exciting Northern Super League, brings the jazz — her otherworldly calmness under pressure allows her to improvise to keep possession of the ball in seemingly impossible spots and ultimately make the pass to set up a teammate or get off her own shot. Sav, now in […]

“What is the most impactful thing I can do to make an impact on carbon emissions?” When asked that question, my answer, while obvious to me, sometimes surprises people: Reduce your meat consumption. Why? The meat industry is responsible for between 14 and 17 percent of global carbon emissions and making the switch towards plant-based diets is a relatively easy switch. The US Open tennis tournament, which runs from August 18 to September 7 at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is making a major push to go plant-forward with its innovative Plant Powered Carbon Challenge. Its goal is […]

“I’m a nerd wrapped up in an athlete’s body” So says triple major at Penn State, retired NFL offensive lineman, CEO of The Bridge Eco Village (an innovative mixed use real estate development company that prioritizes environmental justice), motivational speaker, and EcoAthletes Champion Garry Gilliam. He can now add children’s eco-book author to his phenomenal athlete-nerd resume, with the publication of “The Bleacher Garden”, a true life story about Garry’s vision to convert an abandoned high school football field and the bleachers surrounding it into a garden that helps feed the community in his hometown of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Click below […]

With Sunday being Mothers Day, GreenSportsPod brings together four important leaders from different segments of the Green-Sports world, all of whom are first time new moms and all with kids who have not yet reached their first birthdays. They are: The wide-ranging conversation covers dealing with work-mom imbalance, how being a mom impacts their perspectives on working in the Green-Sports space, and much more. Enjoy, please share, and HAPPY MOTHERS DAY! More GreenSportsPod: You can also listen to GreenSportsPod on your favorite podcast platforms (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more) All GSP episodes are archived on GreenSportsBlog. Just click on GREEN SPORTS POD in […]

Pragnya Mohan is a force of nature. India’s #1 ranked woman triathlete brings persistence, drive, strategic savvy, and curiosity to everything she does.  In today’s GreenSportsPod, we discuss Pragnya’s:  Click below to listen to the pod and enjoy! And thanks in advance for sharing it. Pragnya Mohan on the run (Photo credit: Pragnya Mohan) Mohan powers through on her bike Mohan delivers a TED Talk in 2022 (Photo credit: TED) Back to GreenSportsPod: You can also listen to GreenSportsPod on your favorite podcast platforms (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more) All GSP episodes are archived on GreenSportsBlog. Just click on GREEN SPORTS POD in […]

While the Olympics are understandably captivating the sports world, there is a great deal going on in sports outside of the Five Rings, including in the Green-Sports World. One such arena is EV racing. While many leaders are skeptical of battery-powered racing, more and more wise heads in the sport see electric racing as the future of motorsports. We could not think of a better guest to talk about that E-future on this episode of GreenSportsPod than Michele Spiezia, the ‘GM of Everything’ at Ellysium Racing, the racing team that is wholly dedicated to propelling electric vehicles as fast as […]

Games canceled or postponed due to flooding or unhealthy orange-hued skies filled with wildfire ash. Increased injuries, illness, and even deaths suffered by athletes from extreme heat, avalanches and more. Significant economic and cultural losses. These are just some of the impacts climate change is having on global sport now that are delved into in ‘Warming Up: How Climate Change Is Changing Sport,’ the deeply researched and illuminating new book by Dr. Maddy Orr, assistant professor of sport ecology at the University of Toronto, and published by Bloomsbury. Given that today is Launch Day for ‘Warming Up,’ we are especially […]

Céline Mulrean is uniquely positioned to consult on and speak about the UN’s 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Globally speaking, she is truly a citizen of the world, holding both French and American passports, calls Rome home, and has lived in ten countries on three continents. As far as the SDGs are concerned, Mulrean brings a strong background in sustainable policymaking and law, as well as extensive practical experience in advocacy, strategic planning and network development to her work that focuses on ways to accelerate progress on reaching those UN global development objectives. Much of her work has been […]

Strong [strawng, strong] adjective Having, showing, or able to exert great bodily or muscular power; physically vigorous or robust; Especially able or powerful in a specific field; Of great moral power, firmness, or courage This dictionary definition fits the Wales-born Kate Strong to a T. She exhibited all the characteristics above and then some last summer during her epic ‘Climate Cycle’ — a 3,000 mile, 3-month journey around the perimeter of mainland Great Britain on a bamboo bicycle she built herself. Along the way, she led or participated in over 30 grassroots events designed to inspire climate awareness and action. […]

Damian Hall never takes the easy way out. After all, he is one of the world’s elite ultra-marathoners, having won the 2023 Spine Race — a 268 mile, 5-day jaunt (you read that right) north from his native England up to the Scottish border. And he is fully engaged in the climate fight, launching The Green Runners group, becoming an EcoAthletes Champion, and writing ‘We Can’t Run Away From This’, a 2022 book from Vertebrate Publishing that examines the impacts of running on the climate crisis and what can be done to reduce them. We discuss the above and much […]

The University of Colorado Buffaloes, often a punching bag over the last two decades, are THE story of the brand new college football season, thanks to the sizzle of new coach Deion ‘Prime’ Sanders and his bravado, and the substance, thanks to Saturday’s shocking 45-42 upset at TCU. Colorado is also in the middle of the year’s biggest off-field college sports story: the dissolution of the venerable Pac-12, the 100+ year-old ‘Conference of Champions’. A massive influx of TV dollars into rival leagues like the Big Ten (starting in ’24-’25, the new home for Pac-12 stalwarts Oregon, UCLA, USC, and […]

Katie Cross is a powerful example of how one person can make a difference. Cross is working to spark a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reductions at scale in a novel way: By using the power of soccer/football and rivalry to incentivize fans to make climate-friendly behavior changes. She is doing so through Pledgeball, her 3-year-old, fast-growing, scientifically-researched-backed startup. So far, Pledgeballers — primarily in the UK so far — have made behavior change pledges equivalent to taking over 4,900 cars off the road. In today’s vibrant, informative GreenSportsPod chat, Cross takes us through the thought and behavioral science […]

EcoAthletes Champion Jacquie Pierri brings intelligence, persistence, curiosity, leadership, humor, and more to her captaincy with the Bolzano Eagles, to her consistent climate advocacy and activism, and to today’s wide-ranging GreenSportsPod conversation. Every time I talk with Jacquie, I learn important things about climate and hockey and I’m very confident you will, too! Click here to listen to our interview and let us know what you think. And, that’s not all! For more of Jacquie’s insights, check out this interview with the BBC Worldservice. Jacquie Pierri digs the puck out from the corner (Photo credit: CWHL) Back to GreenSportsPod: You can also […]

At first glance, Fran Reuland has a most unusual resume. She’s played soccer at a very high level for the legendary University of North Carolina Tar Heels, as a pro in Ligue 2 in France and now with the Colorado Rapids in the WPSL. At the same time, she has become an expert on Methane (CH4) — a greenhouse gas with emissions that are exponentially more intense than CO2 — at the Rocky Mountain Institute. And she’s an EcoAthletes Champion. Yet as you listen to our GreenSportsPod conversation, you’ll see how some of the skills that allow Reuland to thrive […]