Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 65.28
Liaison Michelle Seppala Gibbs
Submission Date March 3, 2023

STARS v2.2

Hope College
IN-16: Green Athletics

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.25 / 0.50 Michelle Gibbs
Director
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution’s green athletics program include the following?:
Yes or No
Zero waste and/or carbon neutral athletic events Yes
A stadium or arena certified under a green building rating system No
A sustainable food and beverage purchasing program that includes athletic event vendors and concessions No
A program to minimize the sustainability impacts of turf management (e.g., by installing low input turfgrass or environmentally preferable artificial turf) Yes
A program to support more sustainable transportation options for athletic events No
Community engagement efforts, e.g. to educate students and fans/supporters about the institution’s sustainability initiatives Yes
An athletic team certification program No

A brief description of the institution’s green athletics program:

--In Novemeber 2022 an article was written about our womens basketball team's sustainability initiaves. This article was published in the local newspaper the "Holland Sentinel."
https://www.hollandsentinel.com/story/news/columns/2022/11/28/misustainable-holland-basketball-team-saves-energy-while-exercising/69657113007/

--Public Affairs and Marketing teamed with Athletics to reduce the sizes of game day programs from 12 to 8 or 4 pages during the 2022-23 school year. Public Affairs and Marketing continues to evaluate game-day program order sizes and selectively target volume to try to minimize the number of unused game-day programs.

--Beginning in December 2022, Public Affairs and Marketing added a logo encouraging recycling in each game-day program that will remain in programs moving forward.

--Athletics makes public address announcements twice during home basketball games encouraging fans to recycle game-day programs and properly dispose of trash.

--In the past we have hosted zero waste events during basketball games as part of the "Campus Race to Zero Waste" (formerly RecycleMania). Due to Covid we were not able to host these events the past few year. In 2022 and 2023 we have competed in the building challenge but hope to return to games again next year.

--At the campus athletic fields (football, soccer, and tennis), retention ponds and vegetative waterways surrounded by 6 ft. no mow zones are maintained instead of using drain tubes. This decreases the rate of water flow into creeks that drain into the nearby lake. All turf is cut at three inches in an effort to catch and slow water run off from those areas.


Website URL where information about the green athletics program is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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