PGA Champions Tour Event Partners With The Smart Group to Reduce Carbon Footprint, Set Goal of 100% Renewable Energy, and Drive Zero Waste by Vendors, Players and Spectators
The 12th annual Allianz Championship, set for February 6-12, 2012 at Broken Sound Club in Boca Raton, Fla., has announced plans to be one of the greenest golf tournaments in North America. To achieve this goal, the tournament will partner with The Smart Group, an organization of ecologists, scientists, educators, and academic researchers who help clients make sound decisions about environmental management.
The 12th annual Allianz Championship, set for February 6-12, 2012 at Broken Sound Club in Boca Raton, Fla., has announced plans to be one of the greenest golf tournaments in North America. To achieve this goal, the tournament will partner with The Smart Group, an organization of ecologists, scientists, educators, and academic researchers who help clients make sound decisions about environmental management.
The tournament plans to set green event benchmarks by developing a comprehensive carbon footprint event analysis, taking the initiative to power the event with 100% renewable energy, and implementing a zero waste program with education of spectators, players and vendors about the benefits of going green in their daily business and personal spaces.
This initiative is an extension of efforts made at the 2011 Allianz Championship, which was the first PGA Champions Tour event ever played on a GEO-certified course. Broken Sound Club is the first golf facility in Florida and only the second in the United States to achieve the GEO Certified award, an international sustainability assurance from the Golf Environment Organization.
“This is truly an ambitious, one-of-a-kind collaboration in sustainability,” said Allianz Championship Tournament Director Ryan Dillon. “We’re committed to ‘greening’ this event through a variety of channels including water use, energy and carbon footprint, environmental quality, landscape and ecosystems, and reducing travel and transportation mileage to and from the site for vendor staging, player transportation and event-goer transportation.”
As the first tournament on the early-season Florida swing of the PGA Champions Tour, the Allianz Championship is collaborating closely with the International Green Energy Council (IGEC), Golf Environment Organization (GEO), the City of Boca Raton, the PGA Champions Tour and Allianz Life, the tournament’s title sponsor and founding sponsor of the 2012 green initiative. The tournament’s green initiative is an extension of programs already being conducted by Allianz. For example, Allianz Life was recently recognized for the second straight year with the prestigious Energy Star designation for its campus in Golden Valley, Minn., putting it in the top nine percent of similar-size buildings nationwide. Parent company Allianz SE has developed around 70 products and services that help mitigate climate change or take environmental impact into account.
“Allianz Life and our parent company Allianz SE are committed to green initiatives within our business practices and celebrate the efforts of the Allianz Championship to take the concept of a truly green event to the next level,” said Nancy Jones, chief marketing officer for Allianz Life. ”We hope these actions serve as inspiration to other large events and a blueprint for how environmental sustainability goals can be achieved.”
The tournament will use a per-mile carbon offset fee generated from all players, vendors and attendees for travel by air and car to enhance the greening of Boca Raton. The total amount of these carbon offset fees will be used to buy trees for planting throughout the City of Boca Raton.
“There is so much potential to bring real world sustainability initiatives into direct contact with thousands of people through golfing events,” noted Jonathan Smith, Chief Executive of the Golf Environment Organization expressing his support for the initiative. “At the Allianz Championship, we see a precedent-seeking, committed golf event and active venue engaging with other event stakeholders to generate actions that will make a tangible difference while enhancing the reputations of all involved. We’re delighted that this trailblazing initiative will unfold at a GEO Certified™ venue, and that some of the pioneering work we have been undertaking around the Ryder Cup has provided a strong and effective model for the delivery of this exciting leadership program.”
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