prevention

This is a story about butter. Somewhere in the telling, power and desire and revenge creep in, but fundamentally it is a story about butter. Man evolved in the cradle of civilization, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, amid warm breezes and hospitable soils. As man wandered and spread, he ventured to less hospitable climes that required him to build shelters. In his home and away from the land, man desired ways to preserve food for tomorrow, so he salted and pickled and preserved and eventually cooled, first with ice and later the refrigerator. In warm weather, desiring to protect his animal's products from the heat, he placed butter inside the refrigerator and it stayed cold and firm for him. When kept outside the refrigerator during moderate temperatures, man discovered that butter stays soft and spreadable, a much desired quality. So as to avoid removing the butter in mild weather and placing it back into the refrigerator during warm weather, he invented a particular spot for his butter, a compartment with a warm surface where he could control the temperature and soften the butter to his liking. And so the butter sits in its compartment, soft to the touch but not melting at 50 degrees, inside a refrigerator cooled to 40 degrees, inside a home heated to 70 degrees, in a climate where the outside air might be 50 degrees. Three layers of precisely regulated thermal control engineered to provide man his desired butter at the desired temperature, all of the time. How we have fallen. Our need for control and convenience and possessions has driven us to madness, no longer able to respect the earth that long has sustained us. This earth is recoiling, straining and shifting beneath our weight, yet we insist on maintaining our foolhardy ways.Our swath of destruction cuts wide, no longer limited to securing food, clothing, shelter. Our pastimes-the things we pursue for amusement-now scar the land, pollute the skies, befoul the water. We pander to our basest instincts-the thrill of the hunt, the rush of competition-while ignoring the intelligence we have cultivated over a millennium. On October 13, 2007, an army of athletes assembled upon the island of Hawaii for the Ironman world championship. From all corners of the globe they came, 1,787 strong, to prove their ability to conquer the water and ground beneath them. Aside from 68 residents of the state of Hawaii, all of them flew jet airliners to attend; the combined distance traveled amounted to 18,312,992 miles (portlandtri.com/miles.html). Eighteen million miles-for one day of sport. The jet airplanes belched 3,634 tons of carbon dioxide and other destructive greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the equivalent generated by 525 average American homes producing heat and light for one year. When did we stop caring? When did it become acceptable to shirk responsibility, to shift it to another person, another country, another generation?
- - -
This fall I volunteered at the Westchester Triathlon in New York. After the race, I stood beneath an unusually warm September sun breaking down bike racks in an endless parking lot. I tore them down and placed them in the back of a truck; by mid-afternoon, all that remained of the transition area was trash, the waste generated by 1,000 athletes over a six-hour span. Gel packets. Scraps of bagel. Plastic water bottles by the hundreds, a consequence of our evolution to single-use containers. All of it destined for the landfill, as Westchester does not contract a recycler. The amount of trash, and the inability of its producers to shuttle it to the trash can, was astounding. As I stood resting, preparing to resume cleanup, two Team-in-Training women joined me in the otherwise empty lot. They each carried a plastic bag. Wordlessly they began circulating, emptying bottles and cans, placing them into the bags. As I broke down a nearby aid station, I watched the parking lot transform from a field of litter to a manageable bulk of waste. They disappeared after an hour and a half, taking their collected recycling with them. They probably saved Westchester half its trash bill.
- - -
Sport has long been an innovator. Things we have learned about health, longevity and nutrition have often been driven by athletics. Through it we have discovered new materials, perfected technologies, improved systems and processes. And yet sport now falls behind, catering more to conspicuous consumption than long-held principles of conservation, efficiency and adaptability. With our food, we demand organic. Our homes are triple-sealed against drafts, our thermostats and lighting computer-controlled. We buy Priuses and separate glass from cardboard. Yet our races stagnate. At the Chicago Marathon, 1.8 million cups were used to dispense water; few events practice recycling or composting. We travel thousands of miles to "destination races" while the local YMCA can't draw 100 to its Spring Fling. A steel bike could last a lifetime; instead we buy carbon and replace it the very next year. Sport is stuck in the age of excess. While the rest of the world educates itself about carbon offsets, global warming and alternative energy, we content ourselves with bigger cars (to haul our gear) and more exotic races. It is no longer acceptable for those who care to clean up for the rest of us.
- - -
Sporting events serve as tributaries feeding the broad river of society. What trickle to life as isolated, singular events gather volume and speed as they rush to the mainstream. Impassioned fans wash over bystanders, sweeping them up in the headlong rush of enthusiasm and momentum. What germinates and nurtures in the shallows eventually drifts to the deep, forming the strongest currents of the stream. The first article in this series railed against the perceived irresponsibility of many sporting events held today. But we're at a turning point - in many ways, we have to be - where years of excess and resource depletion are shifting to enlightened sensibilities about how we interact with the world. The environmental footprint of sport is larger, and often more impactful, than many may think. The biggest problems are generally the amount of waste generated, the energy consumed, and the side effects of travel to the event and home again. If events take steps to minimize each, we're a long way toward more responsible sport.
- - -
Though easy to overlook, travel caused by sporting events results in a significant amount of pollution. In the United States, triathlon in particular has seen participants coming from farther and farther away. This far-flung travel is no longer reserved for championship events; the recreational athlete seeks out "destination races" where he can bring his family and spend a few days; the more exotic (and oftentimes distant), the better. Travel is normally by airplane and private car, two modes of transportation that release harmful greenhouse gases into the environment. In recent years global warming has made its way into the headlines with more and more fervor, and travel is a leading contributor. The 2006 FIFA World Cup, as part of its "Green Goal" initiative, undertook to lessen the travel footprint left by the hundreds of thousands of spectators thronging to German cities. A "Combi-ticket" was offered that allowed free access to all local public transportation for the day. In Germany, a vast and reliable public transportation network ensured that fans were able to move around effectively; due to its convenience and cost, over 75% of the attending public used alternative transportation (including biking or walking) to get to the matches. In the United States, where public transportation is not nearly as well developed, other means of combating greenhouse gas emissions have been adopted. Carbon credits are widely seen as the most promising solution, though critics point out they are not without flaws. The basic idea behind credits is not complicated: individuals pay a sum of money proportional to a polluting activity they engage in, and that money is used by a third party to fund projects which reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. For example, a participant could pay a few dollars to The Climate Trust in response to a car trip to a summer triathlon. The Climate Trust, a non-profit organization based in Portland, Oregon, takes this money and invests it in wind farms which would otherwise not exist. A new wind farm, at least in theory, would reduce the need for carbon-producing energy sources like coal. In this way the driving trip is "offset" by the wind farm. The 2006 Torino Winter Olympic Games became the first major sporting event to engage the carbon market to completely offset its carbon footprint. Recognizing that global warming presents a problem for the future of winter sports, organizers endeavored to quantify their greenhouse gas emissions, reduce them where they could, and offset the rest. The effort culminated in 103,516 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions being offset - the equivalent of powering 14,955 homes for a year. Any sporting event requires energy, and this represents a second opportunity for reducing an event's footprint. Most energy typically comes from nonrenewable resources, like fuel for generators, but some events are turning to cleaner sources. Solar energy, in addition to being virtually limitless, also allows for remote power in areas not tied to the grid. The City of Portland Triathlon, held this past September in Oregon, used solar panels to power the swim finish arch at the river's edge, thus eliminating long extension cords or the noise of a gas generator. The 2005 IAAF World Championships in Helsinki, Finland derived 10% of its energy from wind power, reflecting broader Scandinavian efforts toward large-scale wind farms.
- - -
A final significant area for greening sporting events is in waste management. For years events did not worry about waste, hiring large dumpsters and filling them to the brim with water bottles, cardboard boxes, food scraps, and paper. With the advent of community recycling programs, events could capitalize on the developing infrastructure to divert a portion of waste from the landfill; the challenge became reducing the rest. Little changes go a long way. Race for the Cure, in certain cities, asks sponsors to not blanket participants with printed fliers or coupons; instead they are encouraged to develop less wasteful marketing methods. The 2006 FIFA World Cup encouraged spectators to keep their drinking cups throughout the tournament and reuse them at the various stadiums. And the Boulder Tennis Association, in Colorado, targeted a goal of "zero waste" through aggressive recycling and reuse at its 41st Annual Austin Scott Memorial Tournament in April, recycling and composting 90% of its waste. With increased awareness comes improved processes and better resources. Lessons learned from the 2000 Olympics in Sydney were applied to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, and further enhancements are planned for the 2012 Games in London. Sustainability is a continuum, a mindset as much as a means to an end. We are at the very beginning, and the first small, tentative steps are being taken.
- - -
This past weekend nearly 80 race directors from across the country assembled in Colorado Springs, Colorado, for USA Triathlon's annual Race Director Symposium. The seminars touched on themes of marketing and permits, insurance and sanctioning; on the final day, the Race Director Commission took its place on stage to entertain questions and offer guidance. One question spoke to the fears of many attending race directors. A director of a half-iron-distance race from the northeast asked if the commission had any suggestions for maintaining the vitality of independent events in the face of the World Triathlon Corporation's expansion of 70.3 events and anticipated move into the Olympic distance.
In short, he was concerned for the long-term viability of his event. He understood USAT's role as a governing body in a free-market economy, but still he sought suggestions from his peers, the race directors assembled before him. The commission could offer no easy answers except encouragement to somehow differentiate his race from all the others. Differentiation offers opportunity by taking advantage of the basic principle of supply and demand: Offer something desirable to a market lacking it, and it will be in demand. At the same conference, later in the day, a project was introduced that encourages innovation locally but more broadly has the potential to differentiate triathlon among all other sports.
- - -
I am working with Jonathan Eng, a USAT-certified coach, and a team of sustainability experts in Portland, Oregon, to create The Council for Responsible Sport. CRS provides an independent, objective certification for environmentally and socially responsible athletic events. Much like the LEED certification for green building, or the USDA Organic label for produce, CRS strives to provide a framework for event directors to implement sustainable practices, while informing consumers which events adhere to these standards. The certification works by attaining credits in five categories of social and environmental sustainability: waste, climate, materials and equipment, community and outreach, and health promotion. Earning these credits qualifies an event to be classified as Certified, Silver, Gold or Evergreen-the highest level attainable. The credits, and the certification process, are meant to be rigorous, objective, transparent and responsive to all. Toward that end, a set of Draft Standards is being distributed to stakeholders (participants, directors, governing bodies, sponsors and organizations), and they are also available for comment at ResponsibleSporting.org. The impetus for CRS was born from the City of Portland Triathlon. Through its creation and the experience of building a sustainable athletic event from the ground up, we realized there exists an opportunity for a deliberate, high-profile realignment of views toward a planning model that values sustainability. We learned how powerfully sport can influence broader habits of society. And we discovered a need to drive the market even further-responsible production can build value for an event, its participants and its host community. Such a certification for athletic events does not currently exist, but its promise ignites wildfires wherever we mention it. At the Race Director Symposium, we asked for 10 races interested in undertaking the process of certification as "seedling" race in 2008; we got interest from 35. The prevailing sentiment from race directors was that they have wanted to become more sustainable, but they lacked the resources, market support and impetus to do so.
USA Triathlon is committed to pushing sustainability forward within our sport. The governing body will work to certify Age Group Nationals in September as the first certified event in the country, and a "USAT Green" stamp will be created to recognize events adhering to the CRS standards.
At first blush, it's not apparent why race directors would want such a certification-how do you get events, organizations and corporations to embrace sustainability when it's not obvious that money-the universal motivator-will follow? Appealing solely to The Right Thing To Do will not work for many events. And most of the economic benefits of "going green"-where they even exist-are far out in the future. Our society does not generally seek out (or reward) delayed gratification.
- - -
At the same time, there are problems and criticisms with elements of the new green economy-for example, a report by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing found that 99 percent of 1,018 common consumer products evaluated made false "green" marketing claims. Green is gold in the marketplace, but without checks and balances most of it serves to simply dupe the consumer. In Norway, the government has banned all claims of environmental friendliness in car advertising because-they're not. CRS provides a mechanism for verifying marketing claims through third-party, credible assessments. The idea is not a new one-a certification exists for everything from appliances to new homes-but it is new in the world of sport. In Oregon this past holiday season, a handful of growers created a certification for Christmas trees because they felt consumers had a right to know which were grown and harvested responsibly. The three biggest tree farms in Oregon agreed to be certified, with a dozen more in line for 2008. As a result, consumers had 2 million sustainable trees to buy-and a choice. Right now we have the luxury of time-our planet is not going to fail in the next few years. We have the chance to put intelligent processes in place now, before problems grow larger and become imminent. We are at the intersection of new sensibilities about our world and an explosion of athletic participation; triathlon has the opportunity to lead the cleaning of sport. And those races which take the initiative will stand before opportunities they never thought possible. Triathlon as the innovator; sustainability as the differentiator-it can happen.


Responsible Sport: Owning Up to the Problem
This report filed - December 19, 2007 By Jeff Henderson "County-road-sign makers seldom tell you twice. If you miss that sign in the weeds that's your problem, not theirs." - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance This is a story about butter. Somewhere in the telling, power and desire and revenge creep in, but fundamentally it is a story about butter. Man evolved in the cradle of civilization, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, amid warm breezes and hospitable soils. As man wandered and spread, he ventured to less hospitable climes that required him to build shelters. In his home and away from the land, man desired ways to preserve food for tomorrow, so he salted and pickled and preserved and eventually cooled, first with ice and later the refrigerator. In warm weather, desiring to protect his animal's products from the heat, he placed butter inside the refrigerator and it stayed cold and firm for him. When kept outside the refrigerator during moderate temperatures, man discovered that butter stays soft and spreadable, a much desired quality. So as to avoid removing the butter in mild weather and placing it back into the refrigerator during warm weather, he invented a particular spot for his butter, a compartment with a warm surface where he could control the temperature and soften the butter to his liking. And so the butter sits in its compartment, soft to the touch but not melting at 50 degrees, inside a refrigerator cooled to 40 degrees, inside a home heated to 70 degrees, in a climate where the outside air might be 50 degrees. Three layers of precisely regulated thermal control engineered to provide man his desired butter at the desired temperature, all of the time. How we have fallen. Our need for control and convenience and possessions has driven us to madness, no longer able to respect the earth that long has sustained us. This earth is recoiling, straining and shifting beneath our weight, yet we insist on maintaining our foolhardy ways.Our swath of destruction cuts wide, no longer limited to securing food, clothing, shelter. Our pastimes-the things we pursue for amusement-now scar the land, pollute the skies, befoul the water. We pander to our basest instincts-the thrill of the hunt, the rush of competition-while ignoring the intelligence we have cultivated over a millennium. On October 13, 2007, an army of athletes assembled upon the island of Hawaii for the Ironman world championship. From all corners of the globe they came, 1,787 strong, to prove their ability to conquer the water and ground beneath them. Aside from 68 residents of the state of Hawaii, all of them flew jet airliners to attend; the combined distance traveled amounted to 18,312,992 miles (portlandtri.com/miles.html). Eighteen million miles-for one day of sport. The jet airplanes belched 3,634 tons of carbon dioxide and other destructive greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the equivalent generated by 525 average American homes producing heat and light for one year. When did we stop caring? When did it become acceptable to shirk responsibility, to shift it to another person, another country, another generation? - - - This fall I volunteered at the Westchester Triathlon in New York. After the race, I stood beneath an unusually warm September sun breaking down bike racks in an endless parking lot. I tore them down and placed them in the back of a truck; by mid-afternoon, all that remained of the transition area was trash, the waste generated by 1,000 athletes over a six-hour span. Gel packets. Scraps of bagel. Plastic water bottles by the hundreds, a consequence of our evolution to single-use containers. All of it destined for the landfill, as Westchester does not contract a recycler. The amount of trash, and the inability of its producers to shuttle it to the trash can, was astounding. As I stood resting, preparing to resume cleanup, two Team-in-Training women joined me in the otherwise empty lot. They each carried a plastic bag. Wordlessly they began circulating, emptying bottles and cans, placing them into the bags. As I broke down a nearby aid station, I watched the parking lot transform from a field of litter to a manageable bulk of waste. They disappeared after an hour and a half, taking their collected recycling with them. They probably saved Westchester half its trash bill. - - - Sport has long been an innovator. Things we have learned about health, longevity and nutrition have often been driven by athletics. Through it we have discovered new materials, perfected technologies, improved systems and processes. And yet sport now falls behind, catering more to conspicuous consumption than long-held principles of conservation, efficiency and adaptability. With our food, we demand organic. Our homes are triple-sealed against drafts, our thermostats and lighting computer-controlled. We buy Priuses and separate glass from cardboard. Yet our races stagnate. At the Chicago Marathon, 1.8 million cups were used to dispense water; few events practice recycling or composting. We travel thousands of miles to "destination races" while the local YMCA can't draw 100 to its Spring Fling. A steel bike could last a lifetime; instead we buy carbon and replace it the very next year. Sport is stuck in the age of excess. While the rest of the world educates itself about carbon offsets, global warming and alternative energy, we content ourselves with bigger cars (to haul our gear) and more exotic races. It is no longer acceptable for those who care to clean up for the rest of us. - - - Sporting events serve as tributaries feeding the broad river of society. What trickle to life as isolated, singular events gather volume and speed as they rush to the mainstream. Impassioned fans wash over bystanders, sweeping them up in the headlong rush of enthusiasm and momentum. What germinates and nurtures in the shallows eventually drifts to the deep, forming the strongest currents of the stream. The first article in this series railed against the perceived irresponsibility of many sporting events held today. But we're at a turning point - in many ways, we have to be - where years of excess and resource depletion are shifting to enlightened sensibilities about how we interact with the world. The environmental footprint of sport is larger, and often more impactful, than many may think. The biggest problems are generally the amount of waste generated, the energy consumed, and the side effects of travel to the event and home again. If events take steps to minimize each, we're a long way toward more responsible sport. - - - Though easy to overlook, travel caused by sporting events results in a significant amount of pollution. In the United States, triathlon in particular has seen participants coming from farther and farther away. This far-flung travel is no longer reserved for championship events; the recreational athlete seeks out "destination races" where he can bring his family and spend a few days; the more exotic (and oftentimes distant), the better. Travel is normally by airplane and private car, two modes of transportation that release harmful greenhouse gases into the environment. In recent years global warming has made its way into the headlines with more and more fervor, and travel is a leading contributor. The 2006 FIFA World Cup, as part of its "Green Goal" initiative, undertook to lessen the travel footprint left by the hundreds of thousands of spectators thronging to German cities. A "Combi-ticket" was offered that allowed free access to all local public transportation for the day. In Germany, a vast and reliable public transportation network ensured that fans were able to move around effectively; due to its convenience and cost, over 75% of the attending public used alternative transportation (including biking or walking) to get to the matches. In the United States, where public transportation is not nearly as well developed, other means of combating greenhouse gas emissions have been adopted. Carbon credits are widely seen as the most promising solution, though critics point out they are not without flaws. The basic idea behind credits is not complicated: individuals pay a sum of money proportional to a polluting activity they engage in, and that money is used by a third party to fund projects which reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. For example, a participant could pay a few dollars to The Climate Trust in response to a car trip to a summer triathlon. The Climate Trust, a non-profit organization based in Portland, Oregon, takes this money and invests it in wind farms which would otherwise not exist. A new wind farm, at least in theory, would reduce the need for carbon-producing energy sources like coal. In this way the driving trip is "offset" by the wind farm. The 2006 Torino Winter Olympic Games became the first major sporting event to engage the carbon market to completely offset its carbon footprint. Recognizing that global warming presents a problem for the future of winter sports, organizers endeavored to quantify their greenhouse gas emissions, reduce them where they could, and offset the rest. The effort culminated in 103,516 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions being offset - the equivalent of powering 14,955 homes for a year. Any sporting event requires energy, and this represents a second opportunity for reducing an event's footprint. Most energy typically comes from nonrenewable resources, like fuel for generators, but some events are turning to cleaner sources. Solar energy, in addition to being virtually limitless, also allows for remote power in areas not tied to the grid. The City of Portland Triathlon, held this past September in Oregon, used solar panels to power the swim finish arch at the river's edge, thus eliminating long extension cords or the noise of a gas generator. The 2005 IAAF World Championships in Helsinki, Finland derived 10% of its energy from wind power, reflecting broader Scandinavian efforts toward large-scale wind farms. - - - A final significant area for greening sporting events is in waste management. For years events did not worry about waste, hiring large dumpsters and filling them to the brim with water bottles, cardboard boxes, food scraps, and paper. With the advent of community recycling programs, events could capitalize on the developing infrastructure to divert a portion of waste from the landfill; the challenge became reducing the rest. Little changes go a long way. Race for the Cure, in certain cities, asks sponsors to not blanket participants with printed fliers or coupons; instead they are encouraged to develop less wasteful marketing methods. The 2006 FIFA World Cup encouraged spectators to keep their drinking cups throughout the tournament and reuse them at the various stadiums. And the Boulder Tennis Association, in Colorado, targeted a goal of "zero waste" through aggressive recycling and reuse at its 41st Annual Austin Scott Memorial Tournament in April, recycling and composting 90% of its waste. With increased awareness comes improved processes and better resources. Lessons learned from the 2000 Olympics in Sydney were applied to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, and further enhancements are planned for the 2012 Games in London. Sustainability is a continuum, a mindset as much as a means to an end. We are at the very beginning, and the first small, tentative steps are being taken. - - - This past weekend nearly 80 race directors from across the country assembled in Colorado Springs, Colorado, for USA Triathlon's annual Race Director Symposium. The seminars touched on themes of marketing and permits, insurance and sanctioning; on the final day, the Race Director Commission took its place on stage to entertain questions and offer guidance. One question spoke to the fears of many attending race directors. A director of a half-iron-distance race from the northeast asked if the commission had any suggestions for maintaining the vitality of independent events in the face of the World Triathlon Corporation's expansion of 70.3 events and anticipated move into the Olympic distance. In short, he was concerned for the long-term viability of his event. He understood USAT's role as a governing body in a free-market economy, but still he sought suggestions from his peers, the race directors assembled before him. The commission could offer no easy answers except encouragement to somehow differentiate his race from all the others. Differentiation offers opportunity by taking advantage of the basic principle of supply and demand: Offer something desirable to a market lacking it, and it will be in demand. At the same conference, later in the day, a project was introduced that encourages innovation locally but more broadly has the potential to differentiate triathlon among all other sports. - - - I am working with Jonathan Eng, a USAT-certified coach, and a team of sustainability experts in Portland, Oregon, to create The Council for Responsible Sport. CRS provides an independent, objective certification for environmentally and socially responsible athletic events. Much like the LEED certification for green building, or the USDA Organic label for produce, CRS strives to provide a framework for event directors to implement sustainable practices, while informing consumers which events adhere to these standards. The certification works by attaining credits in five categories of social and environmental sustainability: waste, climate, materials and equipment, community and outreach, and health promotion. Earning these credits qualifies an event to be classified as Certified, Silver, Gold or Evergreen-the highest level attainable. The credits, and the certification process, are meant to be rigorous, objective, transparent and responsive to all. Toward that end, a set of Draft Standards is being distributed to stakeholders (participants, directors, governing bodies, sponsors and organizations), and they are also available for comment at ResponsibleSporting.org. The impetus for CRS was born from the City of Portland Triathlon. Through its creation and the experience of building a sustainable athletic event from the ground up, we realized there exists an opportunity for a deliberate, high-profile realignment of views toward a planning model that values sustainability. We learned how powerfully sport can influence broader habits of society. And we discovered a need to drive the market even further-responsible production can build value for an event, its participants and its host community. Such a certification for athletic events does not currently exist, but its promise ignites wildfires wherever we mention it. At the Race Director Symposium, we asked for 10 races interested in undertaking the process of certification as "seedling" race in 2008; we got interest from 35. The prevailing sentiment from race directors was that they have wanted to become more sustainable, but they lacked the resources, market support and impetus to do so. USA Triathlon is committed to pushing sustainability forward within our sport. The governing body will work to certify Age Group Nationals in September as the first certified event in the country, and a "USAT Green" stamp will be created to recognize events adhering to the CRS standards. At first blush, it's not apparent why race directors would want such a certification-how do you get events, organizations and corporations to embrace sustainability when it's not obvious that money-the universal motivator-will follow? Appealing solely to The Right Thing To Do will not work for many events. And most of the economic benefits of "going green"-where they even exist-are far out in the future. Our society does not generally seek out (or reward) delayed gratification. - - - At the same time, there are problems and criticisms with elements of the new green economy-for example, a report by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing found that 99 percent of 1,018 common consumer products evaluated made false "green" marketing claims. Green is gold in the marketplace, but without checks and balances most of it serves to simply dupe the consumer. In Norway, the government has banned all claims of environmental friendliness in car advertising because-they're not. CRS provides a mechanism for verifying marketing claims through third-party, credible assessments. The idea is not a new one-a certification exists for everything from appliances to new homes-but it is new in the world of sport. In Oregon this past holiday season, a handful of growers created a certification for Christmas trees because they felt consumers had a right to know which were grown and harvested responsibly. The three biggest tree farms in Oregon agreed to be certified, with a dozen more in line for 2008. As a result, consumers had 2 million sustainable trees to buy-and a choice. Right now we have the luxury of time-our planet is not going to fail in the next few years. We have the chance to put intelligent processes in place now, before problems grow larger and become imminent. We are at the intersection of new sensibilities about our world and an explosion of athletic participation; triathlon has the opportunity to lead the cleaning of sport. And those races which take the initiative will stand before opportunities they never thought possible. Triathlon as the innovator; sustainability as the differentiator-it can happen. Jeff Henderson forsook the world of competitive swimming for triathlon in 1997. Since then he has busied himself competing, officiating, writing, and race directing. He directs the Musselman Triathlon, the Fly by Night Duathlon, and the City of Portland Triathlon. To stay sane, he cares for Ophelia, Dixie, and Wyan, three charismatic yet remunerative backyard chickens