Apr 30 2008

More on Baseball and Clean Energy

Posted by: Keely Wachs

Today the Philadelphia Phillies dipped their toes into the world of clean energy by purchasing 20 million kilowatt hours of Green-e Energy Certified Renewable Certificates (REC's).  The purchase will offset the energy use at Citizens Bank Park for the year.

As part of the EPA's Green Power Partnership, the Phillies' purchase is the largest purchase of renewable energy in professional sports. 

REC's are an interesting way of greening the Phillies' operations and part of a larger trend in Baseball teams becoming more environmentally friendly.  Len wrote an interesting post last month about how the Nationals introduced their new green ballpark.  And last year, PG&E partnered with the Giants on making AT&T Park the first major league stadium with solar energy.

It will be interesting to watch how environmental groups react to the Phillies' decision to use REC's. Some groups have argued that this approach is akin to a license to pollute.  Instead of focusing on producing clean energy or focusing on energy efficiency like the Nationals, opponents might argue that REC's aren't really helping to create cleaner energy.

We launched ClimateSmart - a voluntary customer carbon offset program - and ran into this argument.  We launched knowing that this would be a potential criticism; however, we designed the program using the most stringent protocols created by the California Climate Action Registry (CCAR). 

To do carbon offsetting well, one must account for additionality, which means that the project would not be done in the course of business if it weren't for the additional investment generated by the credit.  CCAR's protocols do account for additionality.  I am sure that the REC's created by the EPA do as well, but the Phillies should be aware of this issue when communicating to their fans. It's very complicated and could be a criticism, even if well-intended.

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