What’s the carbon footprint of March Madness?

March madness means 68 teams vying to be champions, Cinderella running for a few underdogs and big business for the NCAA, which earns 85% of its annual operating budget during the men’s basketball tournament.

But all of this comes at a huge cost: an estimated 463 million pounds (210 million kilograms) of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions will be released into the atmosphere over the three-week event. That’s equivalent to the total emissions of a large university — like the 2019 Champion University of Virginia — for a full year.

These greenhouse gas emissions warm the planet and contribute to heat waves, sea level rise and extreme weather conditions. Carbon dioxide equivalent is a way to measure the impact of several different greenhouse gases at the same time.

Crunch carbon for big events

A colleague, Alex Cooper, and I determined this number based on data for the 2019 NCAA tournament.

Previous research into the carbon footprint of sporting events has mainly focused on single city events, such as the Football Association Challenge Cup in the UK, and centralized events such as the Olympic Games. Little previous research has attempted to determine the environmental impact of a major sporting event such as the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Additionally, when sports event organizers calculate and report emissions for their events, they typically only report what happens at their facility during the event. They do not take into account the environmental impact, for example of traveling to and from the event.

So we wanted to know what the carbon footprint is for a huge and popular event like March Madness?

For our peer-reviewed study, published in the Journal of Cleaner Production in October 2021, we wanted to estimate the carbon emissions for all activities associated with hosting a massive basketball tournament held in multiple cities across the country in a takes place for a short period of time. Although our estimates are based on 2019, we believe emissions from tournaments are comparable to other years, including 2023.

We looked beyond facilities to include team and fan flights and road trips, facility operations, food consumption, waste generation and accommodation for everyone based on each team’s progress in the 2019 tournament Determine the impact of hotel stays, fan and team flights and car trips, waste generation, food consumption and sports facility operations and create our CO2 emissions model.

Based on our model, we found that this resulted in 463 million pounds of CO2 equivalent emissions. That’s approximately 1,100 pounds (499 kilograms) for each participating player, coach and fan. This amount is equivalent to driving over 1,930 kilometers (1,200 miles) in a typical sedan.

As expected, by far the largest source of emissions was travel by fans and teams, accounting for around 79.95% of total emissions. Hotel stays come second at 6.83%, followed by food at 6.37%, stadium operations at 5.9% and general waste at 0.95%.

What surprised us the most was that the share of the travel category in the total was lower than in previous studies analyzing the carbon footprint of sporting events. But that was mainly because, unlike these other studies, we considered many other aspects of the event, such as: B. Accommodation, food and waste.

Ways to mitigate the impact

What can March Madness organizers – or any tournament for that matter – do to reduce their carbon footprint?

Because travel accounts for such a large part of that footprint, tackling emissions from long-distance travel like flights can be one of the most effective ways to reduce the overall impact of the event, other researchers have found.

While travel can’t be completely eliminated for a tournament like the NCAA’s, organizers could consider more regional placements to reduce the distances fans and teams have to travel. For example, in 2019 Mississippi State, Liberty, Virginia Tech, Saint Louis and Wisconsin all traveled to San Jose, California. The idea would be for more games to be regional to reduce travel distances. Not only would this reduce carbon emissions, but it could also increase profits by making it easier for more fans to attend.

And when evaluating host cities and locations, the NCAA could consider local policies that promote sustainable hotel operations. For example, during the 2019 tournament, California host cities had more energy efficient hotel operations, reducing the second-highest contributor to overall emissions. The same goes for choosing arenas and sports facilities that are energy efficient.

March Madness brings tremendous value and fun to college basketball fans across the country. While its carbon footprint can never be eliminated, there are ways to reduce its overlooked environmental costs.

This article was republished by The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/whats-the-carbon-footprint-of-march-madness-201540.