Greening our game

Mark Weightman Vice-President, Operations and Events

Being environmentally friendly doesn’t mean we have to stop everything we’re doing. It means we have to do things in a smarter way. In 2008 the Alouettes became the first professional sports organization in Canada to be carbon neutral.

By being carbon neutral means we make sure all our activities release as little polluting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as possible. Whatever we can’t eliminate, we offset by buying credits from an environmental organization called Planetair. These credits fund projects that develop cleaner sources of energy in other parts of the world with less money. By being carbon neutral, the Alouettes have reduced carbon dioxide equal to removing 100 cars from the road every year. Everyone has an environmental footprint. The goal is to make it as small as possible. The Alouettes have done this in a variety of ways. With the help of a food service company, for example, we have greatly reduced the packaging for all the food and drinks sold at our games.

The Alouettes encourage fans to use the recycling bins for all paper, cardboard or plastic. We have a fun video clip of our mascot Touché tackling a guy who is about to put a plastic bottle in the trash. We hope to get the message across that reducing and recycling waste should be a habit with everyone. After a game, we have a cleanup crew that checks under every one of the 25,000 seats to make sure there’s no garbage left. We’re very proud that we’ve been able to collect, sort and recycle just over 50 per cent of all the garbage from each game. We’re now aiming to compost what’s left. The Alouettes hope that by showing how our team is making all its activities as environmentally friendly as possible, it will encourage others to make better choices for the planet.

Working together for a better future

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