September 18th, 2009
By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now
The University of Florida in recent years has been known for its outstanding athletic programs, specifically football. The Gators have been atop college football rankings for the past four years. Now, their athletic programs are granting them top environmental rankings as well.
The Florida campus is home to the first and only Platinum LEED-certified athletic facility in the nation and recently added two energy-efficient LED video boards atop the north and south end zones at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
In 2007, University of Florida President Bernie Machen joined the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment and established a goal for the university to be completely carbon neutral by 2025.
What better place to start than with their headline-making football program. That same year, UF hosted the first ever carbon neutral collegiate football game against Florida State. By 2008, the Gators had increased their efforts to by distributing more than 63,000 energy efficient CFLs and planting more than 200 trees creating a savings of more than $3.2 million for the Gainesville community. This year, Florida is taking it even further with its commitment to become the first carbon neutral athletic program. The Gators’ 2,500 ton carbon footprint will be offset through many local energy efficiency projects.
“We are excited to strengthen our commitment to The Gator Nation by partnering with the Neutral Gator Initiative to make our athletics program carbon neutral,” Athletic Director Jeremy Foley said in a statement. “The university is a leader in academics and athletics, and now we are proud to lead the way again by being the first carbon neutral athletics program in the nation.”
“The Neutral Gator Initiative will create enough local offsets this year to neutralize every sport’s team travel and all the athletic facilities. All of our offsets are created in the local community, with specific emphasis placed on the low-income sectors,” said Jacob Cravey, with the Neutral Gator Initiative.
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