With apologies to Chicago Bears fans, Super Bowl XLI was one of the most entertaining Super Bowls in recent memory. (As a huge Colts fan, I may be a bit biased.) It was the first won by an African-American head coach, the first of what will no doubt be several more championships for Peyton Manning, the first to be played in a driving rainstorm and the 3rd rated TV program in history (after the 1983 series finale of M.A.S.H and the Dallas vs. Pittsburgh Super Bowl in 1996).
But what may have been lost amid the super hoopla of the game itself was that this was the third year in a row that the NFL has declared the Super Bowl a carbon-neutral event. The NFL planted more than 3,000 mangrove and other native Floridian trees and purchased Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to offset the more than 500 tons of carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the power generated and vehicles used for the game.
It’s a good thing the NFL is trying to do, and it’s more than many, many other organizations that stage huge events are willing to try. But is the Super Bowl really carbon neutral? Probably not. Environmentalists say there’s a big difference between offsetting emissions and not emitting in the first place. That’s because offsets are fraught with mistaken assumptions. Do trees planted outside of tropical zones actually sequester carbon? Probably not. Wouldn’t the renewable energy be produced and used whether or not the NFL purchased its RECs? Almost certainly yes. The goal, it seems, should be to work on being efficient in the first place, emitting as little as possible and then using various offset measures to close the much smaller emissions gap to carbon neutrality. But, hey, you gotta start somewhere, right? And much like Peyton Manning and the Colts, the NFL should be applauded!