For the past 16 years, the NBA has been working quietly to make its operations, arenas, and organization more sustainable — and now it's ready to share that work with the world.
"Our challenge is to make sure it's not behind the scenes," said Kathy Behrens, the NBA's president of social responsibility and player programs, in a discussion hosted by The Cool Down and Zeno Group at Climate Week. "We can't do it in the shadows. That's the challenge for us … to make sure that people understand, our fans understand, our players understand, our teams understand, that there's a reason we're doing it."
The event held in New York City brought together top executives from the NBA, Procter & Gamble, and over a dozen other top companies to talk about how to take Climate Week to mainstream America — driving impact and meeting the growing consumer demand for more transparent and less wasteful products, services, and packaging.
"We've really tried to find the ways that we can use the power of our brand, use that unifying aspect of sports to help people understand that there are things that we can all do," Behrens told the crowd.
"There are also small things that everybody can do, that we can do as a business, that I can do individually. I think if we go with that intention, that's the approach that we've taken. It's been the thing that keeps us going in this space, meeting people where they are."
Behrens said the NBA launched NBA Green 16 years ago with the help of Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a former senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council who helped the basketball league figure out how to rethink its operations, events, and arenas, along with how to engage fans in new ways. Hershkowitz also serves as an adviser to Major League Soccer and the New York Yankees.
"Sports is really a unique space," Behrens said. "We try to think about … how can we give our fans tips and tools? How can we help our players speak authentically about this issue? How can we make them understand that they don't just have to take big bets, but there are small wins along the way?"
Scott Heid, Procter & Gamble's VP of Global Sustainability Communications, echoed similar sentiments about a similarly large global brand, telling the audience that P&G has "a unique responsibility" to its billions of daily consumers to "help people reduce their footprint by using less energy, water, and waste." That's in addition to achieving the company goal of net zero by 2040; P&G has already reduced its operational emissions by half.
"Our goal is to make sustainability easier, because as we talk with people all around the world, they say, I want more sustainable solutions, but I don't know where I can make the biggest impact," Heid said. "It's hard, and it's time-consuming. So our goal is to make everyday chores and things that you do more sustainable, by helping give you products that can reduce resources."
When the P&G team analyzed the company's environmental impact, Heid said, their biggest footprint was consumers using hot water — bigger even than their operational company-wide emissions. "So we really focused on that … designing products that could help consumers reduce energy and waste."
That included a massive "cold water wash" campaign encouraging consumers to wash their laundry on cold water with the promise of saving up to $150 a year, and asking people to use and trust their dishwashers more instead of handwashing, as dishwashers use far less water in the process.
Alison DaSilva, global managing director of purpose and impact for the communications agency Zeno Group, which co-hosted the event with TCD, said consumers — especially Gen Z — are increasingly looking for brands to lead.
"They're confused, they're overwhelmed, and they're skeptical. They're trying to do good, but their wallet is tight," she said. "The future is uncertain. So guess what? They're tired of carrying the burden. They're looking for companies to make it easier for them."
To that end, Behrens said that the NBA is thinking about sustainability with every event, every arena, and every move that players make.
"When our teams travel this year, we are spending time trying to think about how we can minimize the amount of travel that teams are doing so we can reduce that impact," she said. Notably, the league recently made travel changes that include occasional back-to-back "series" where teams play the same opponent in the same city instead of the traditional method of every game always featuring at least one team traveling to get there.
Behrens also talked about the "arena of the future," the new Intuit Dome in Los Angeles built by Steve Ballmer (former CEO of Microsoft) and the LA Clippers, which she said is "going to really revolutionize the ways arenas feel and are used by consumers and players."
Heid showed a glimpse into the future with P&G's new Tide EVO product, a compact disc-like laundry product 10 years in the making that's currently being tested at select locations in the U.S..
"It's made of about 10,000 fibers that are spun over each other with all of the cleaning ingredients of Tide, and it has obviously no water, no plastic bottle," he said. "... This product we hope will really change the game."
Behrens, Heid, and DaSilva each shared optimism and hope for the future.
"When you just listen to what people have done in this space and with all of you who come out this week and have so many incredible events, there's so much more positive going on in this space than there is negative," Behrens said.
"As I look at kind of that next decade," Heid added, "of when my daughters may start having children, I am inspired that we are about to hit an S-curve where we are going to rocket and continue to mobilize and make progress, because I look at the progress we've made over the last 10 years, and I just think it's an exciting time."
Said DaSilva: "Gen Z [gives me hope]. ... What's unique is they grew up always having climate change be a part of their everyday life. They don't view it as political. They don't view it as controversial. They see a problem and a need to solve it. They're very practical generation, and I have no doubt that they will be the ones to really take us to the next level, to where we need to go."
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