Post by jkelly57 on Mar 6, 2008 19:00:42 GMT -6
Auto racing: Seen to be green
Andy Holloway
From the March 17, 2008 issue of Canadian Business magazine
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Playing sports is the epitome of clean — if sweaty — living. Get in a little action and you’ll stay fit and live longer. But professional sport is a bit of an environmental nightmare. Athletes add to the carbon footprint by constantly flying around the world for games, thousands of spectators drive to events in pollution-belching cars, and the noise that comes out of Roger Clemens’s mouth is self-serving at best, a pile of BS at worst.
One of the worst offenders is auto racing. Its very existence depends on burning large amounts of fossil fuels for maximum speed. Without that fuel, there’s no race. And, truth be told, there is something about the smell of spent gas and the roar of an oversized internal combustion engine that transforms racing into something almost epic, rather than just a bunch of short guys driving round and round.
All of which makes it a little hard to swallow when a worldwide racing circuit starts bragging about its environmental friendliness. But A1 Grand Prix’s recent switch to a 30% biofuel mix for all its cars, as part of its Think Greener Racing initiative, is a pretty good move. First of all, the new fuel, an ethanol-based product called Hiperflo E30, is sourced from sugar beets and reduces CO2 emissions by 21% per car without affecting performance much. Secondly — and skeptics will say more importantly — using biofuel separates A1 from Formula One and NASCAR, by giving the four-year-old organization something the others can’t claim: an environmental beachhead from which to market.
Let’s face it. Companies of all types are under increasing pressure from customers, shareholders and environmental activists to adopt green or sustainable strategies. “I’d be hard-pressed to think of a client who isn’t thinking about it, what their competitors are doing and what it means for them,” says Andrew Bruce, president of Publicis Toronto, an advertising agency. For example, Wal-Mart is acutely aware of Loblaw’s efforts to be seen as the green grocer, and has stepped up its own environmental marketing efforts of late.
Sports is no different. “The biggest problem for auto racing is that the activity has at its centre the burning of fossil fuels, and there’s no way to dress that up,” says Mark Gallagher, CEO of Eden Rock Sports Management and managing director of Status Grand Prix, the company that operates both A1 Team Canada and Team Ireland. “If for no other reasons than the commercial imperative, we have to tackle these issues now. Doing it in 2011 is going to be too late.”
By then Formula One, for instance, will likely have caught the green bug, but so, too, will sponsors. Gallagher admits being seen to be green isn’t exactly a make-or-break proposition for A1’s existing sponsors or potential ones — yet. “There will be no point sitting in front of the marketing director of a major company in five years time saying, ‘Hey we burn gas and race cars,’” says Gallagher. “They’re just not going to be interested.”
A1’s sponsors include Cooper Tire, investment manager Rab Capital and Aon Corp., but Team Canada doesn’t have any Canadian sponsors yet. No surprise, since A1 doesn’t have a Canadian stop, nor does it get daily media coverage. Using biofuel, cutting down on the number of technical personnel who travel to events and reducing air freight won’t change that. But it can’t hurt.
Andy Holloway
From the March 17, 2008 issue of Canadian Business magazine
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Playing sports is the epitome of clean — if sweaty — living. Get in a little action and you’ll stay fit and live longer. But professional sport is a bit of an environmental nightmare. Athletes add to the carbon footprint by constantly flying around the world for games, thousands of spectators drive to events in pollution-belching cars, and the noise that comes out of Roger Clemens’s mouth is self-serving at best, a pile of BS at worst.
One of the worst offenders is auto racing. Its very existence depends on burning large amounts of fossil fuels for maximum speed. Without that fuel, there’s no race. And, truth be told, there is something about the smell of spent gas and the roar of an oversized internal combustion engine that transforms racing into something almost epic, rather than just a bunch of short guys driving round and round.
All of which makes it a little hard to swallow when a worldwide racing circuit starts bragging about its environmental friendliness. But A1 Grand Prix’s recent switch to a 30% biofuel mix for all its cars, as part of its Think Greener Racing initiative, is a pretty good move. First of all, the new fuel, an ethanol-based product called Hiperflo E30, is sourced from sugar beets and reduces CO2 emissions by 21% per car without affecting performance much. Secondly — and skeptics will say more importantly — using biofuel separates A1 from Formula One and NASCAR, by giving the four-year-old organization something the others can’t claim: an environmental beachhead from which to market.
Let’s face it. Companies of all types are under increasing pressure from customers, shareholders and environmental activists to adopt green or sustainable strategies. “I’d be hard-pressed to think of a client who isn’t thinking about it, what their competitors are doing and what it means for them,” says Andrew Bruce, president of Publicis Toronto, an advertising agency. For example, Wal-Mart is acutely aware of Loblaw’s efforts to be seen as the green grocer, and has stepped up its own environmental marketing efforts of late.
Sports is no different. “The biggest problem for auto racing is that the activity has at its centre the burning of fossil fuels, and there’s no way to dress that up,” says Mark Gallagher, CEO of Eden Rock Sports Management and managing director of Status Grand Prix, the company that operates both A1 Team Canada and Team Ireland. “If for no other reasons than the commercial imperative, we have to tackle these issues now. Doing it in 2011 is going to be too late.”
By then Formula One, for instance, will likely have caught the green bug, but so, too, will sponsors. Gallagher admits being seen to be green isn’t exactly a make-or-break proposition for A1’s existing sponsors or potential ones — yet. “There will be no point sitting in front of the marketing director of a major company in five years time saying, ‘Hey we burn gas and race cars,’” says Gallagher. “They’re just not going to be interested.”
A1’s sponsors include Cooper Tire, investment manager Rab Capital and Aon Corp., but Team Canada doesn’t have any Canadian sponsors yet. No surprise, since A1 doesn’t have a Canadian stop, nor does it get daily media coverage. Using biofuel, cutting down on the number of technical personnel who travel to events and reducing air freight won’t change that. But it can’t hurt.