Shelley Villalobos: Executive Director of the Council for Responsible Sport

Since 2007, the Council for Responsible Sport has been helping people measure and manage the social and environmental impacts of their events.

The Council for Responsible Sport is a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization with a vision of a world where responsibly produced events are the norm.  Its mission is to provide objective, independent verification of the socially and environmentally responsible work that event organizers are doing, and to actively support event organizers who strive to make a difference in their communities. 

Hi Shelley - How did the Council For Responsible Sport begin?  

The Council for Responsible Sport is a nonprofit organization based in the US.  We were founded in 2007 by event organizers working on a triathlon with The Freshwater Trust.  The swimming portion of the race was taking place in the Willamette River, which was historically polluted, and they needed to assure people that enough restoration had been done in the river to make it clean enough to swim in. 

And that was what prompted the start of the Council for Responsible Sport: our founder’s journey to look for good examples and best practice in hosting events that were environmentally responsible. And this included a social mission and an ethical approach to be followed as well.  They got input from their race director friends, and network of peers throughout the country, and this became the first version of the Responsible Sports Standards. 

And that was back in 2007 and 2008, and now we're on the fourth version of standards for single events. And we've certified about 175 events to that standard to date. As of last fall, we also released our standards for organizations that host many events. While the single event standards are very useful, we were talking more and more to organizations and venues that wanted a set of policies and practices that they could apply across their entire event portfolio. And that’s why we now have two standards: one for single events, and one for organizations that host many events.

How do events and organizations begin their journey?  And what are some pain points?  

We've seen a lot of them start just looking at the standards, and they see that they're already doing quite a few of them, maybe even enough to get a basic level certification, which we offer if 45% of the overall standards are met. There's five categories of the standards, and there's 61 items, and I'm talking just about the single event standard at this point. A lot of them will say, “Okay, we're doing some good things, like we have a waste diversion plan, and we're doing a lot of recycling, and we added composting, and we're donating leftover food scraps, and okay, we need to measure our greenhouse gas emissions, how do we do that?” Or, they say, “Okay, here's the things we're already doing, we've checked those boxes and feel good about it. And what's next for us?” 

A lot of times it’s been the climate impact piece that’s been a learning curve for a lot of event organizers. And so we've developed a GHG tracking tool for them that's specific to the nuances of hosting events, and points to where the main impacts are. 

The fourth and fifth categories are the social elements of the event which include access and equity. So we’re looking at who's showing up to the event, and to make sure that everyone can navigate the event. We need to make sure that we’re reducing barriers to participation for people from all over the community. We’ve seen an uptick in positive community outreach spurred by the best practices in standard.  A great example is the LA Marathon and their partnership with Students Run LA. They've gotten over 400,000 local youth to run a marathon as part of their life skills development, as well as their physical health and well being. The LA Marathon has given those registrations as in-kind donations. 

Yes, there are many barriers to being able to run a marathon such as access and cost. 

The organization offers coaching, helps them pay for shoes, and offers guidance on things that maybe a 17 or an 18 year old might not know how to navigate if they've never been invited to do so. 

I think organizations don’t always know how to incorporate the social aspect of sustainability into events, so thank you for this example.

Another great example just came to mind: at the Cowtown Marathon, which is in Fort Worth, Texas, they've got a program called C.A.L.F (Children’s Activities for Life and Fitness) where corporate sponsors subsidize the purchasing of shoes, because a lot of kids have never been fit properly for running shoes.  They have volunteers that take shoes directly to the schools, and local volunteers do coaching right there at their schools.  And then they can culminate that experience with running the Cowtown Marathon.

Thanks for touching upon the role of corporate sponsorship, as another opportunity to incorporate into a sustainable event plan.  I’d love to hear more.

You just hit the nail on the head by having a plan, that's a great place to start, right? Because if you're going to engage the corporate marketing folks, they want to see your plan. And they want to see how many many impressions they're going to get with that investment.  So event organizers need a plan that demonstrates the impact of what they want to accomplish.  And it’s all the better if it's got both social and environmental tie-ins, because purpose driven work is going to get the most support nowadays.

I think people have been marketed to a lot. In my generation, there's some ridiculous number of ads that I'm supposed to have seen by now.  But on TV, people are fast forwarding through the commercials, and the traditional marketing approaches are being challenged.  And these days people don't just want to see your logo on their screen. I think this allows for in-person events and experiences to become important opportunities for corporations to show what they care about the real people behind the logo.

A good example would be the Dow LPGA Tournament in Midland, Michigan. This event really supports the community by organizing a fun tour of local businesses and restaurants, and they’ve developed a strong Zero Waste effort to divert as much waste, using compost and recycling, as much as they can.  Plus preventing waste up front by using reusable dishware as much as possible.

What advice would you give to an organization that feels overwhelmed by starting their sustainability journey? 

The Council for Responsible Sport has a new, free tracking tool that is web-based called ReScore.  And organizations can start with a self assessment, to see where you're at compared to the standards. ReScore will guide you through the five categories, so you can begin with a little tally, and it's the best place to start because then you can see where your strengths already are, and you can also identify your gaps, and what you're missing.  And we believe that your weaknesses are your opportunities, because that's the place where the most improvement can happen. And then ideally leadership will seek input about what is most important to the people who are actually making that organization run. And once you do that, you start to see what your people really tend to care about. And again, it's a great place to build from. 

So I think it's a matter of leadership giving agency to individuals within their organization to say, let's do the self assessment, let's see where we're at, and then let's talk about it. And let's invite input from everybody.  This can initially be uncomfortable, but it leads to the most growth in having everyone feel great about their purpose, and their contributions to the organization built around their core values.

The ReScore self assessment is free, and organizations can start to measure and track their results.  They can store documents in there, they can download several calculators, tools, and templates to use at will for their own purposes. We've tried to make it a turnkey kit to build a strong sustainability program from the ground up.

And there's a GHG (greenhouse gas) tracking tool that is easy to use.  GHG tracking is something that scares a lot of people. There's a 15 minute how-to-use-this tool video that walks you through all of its functions, and shows where you need to put in information, and where to find that information. I would say if someone carves out anywhere between two to five hours they can get a good idea of their GHG emissions. There only needs to be basic information like, how many generators did you use on the day? And for how long did they run? How much square footage of rented space did you use? If you were at a convention center, how many miles did your staff travel running errands? And questions of that nature.

And for some folks it's going to be exact. And for others, it's going to be more of an estimate. And that's okay. Realistically, there's no perfect analysis of GHG at events, but we're trying to get closer every time that we try. If you can get a measurement of what you are doing, then the next time you do it it's apples to apples, and you can see where you've improved, just by measuring the same things as you did last time. It's really about your own self improvement, more than necessarily comparing it to other other events.

When you understand your impact, you can identify means to mitigate that impact.

A lot of event organizers want to understand the benefits of getting their event third party certified.  What are some reasons why organizers should put in this effort?

If it’s an event that's high profile enough that it's going to be under scrutiny, that's when we really see sponsors, especially, wanting to have those events certified. And, and it's a great way to get everyone speaking the same language.  Events rely on so many subcontractors, and so many third parties to deliver the event, right? There's a lot of suppliers and vendors involved. So standards help as a common language to understand the shared goals, and what the event would like to achieve from a sustainability perspective. 

For example, if an organizer is seeking a Gold Level Responsible Sport Certification, they event can say, “Okay, food vendors, this is your part of that and here's what we need from you.”  That's the main value we've heard from organizers, saying it was so helpful to have a system where we could all be moving in the same direction toward the same goal, using the same language. So that's really what it's intended to do. And we hope that it's serving that need. And we hope more and more folks will adopt the standards so that they're not recreating the wheel every time, so that they can just say, we're meeting the standards, we feel great. 

And I think people get a little afraid of standards sometimes, but if everybody uses standards, then it will become the event industry standard. And I think we lose that sometimes because we see it as a test, right?  But if we keep promoting the standards, then that standard becomes the norm.

What would you say to anybody that fears planning a sustainable event will cost more?  Because I feel that this is one of the fears that keeps organizers from deciding to plan a “sustainable event.”

I think event organizers can take a hard look at their business and pricing models and ask themselves if they are operating to the level of profit that they want, or need to be. And then figure out what's that happy medium, where your customers are willing to pay more for something sustainable, and this will allow them to find the sweet spot.

So, yes, the 100% recycled polyester shirt, or the 100%, organic cotton shirt might cost a little bit more, but maybe you can find a realistic price, and then make it optional for the attendees. For example, at the point of registration for the event, you can ask “do you want a shirt?” If it costs you 10 bucks, for example, you can add on whatever margin you need to make that worthwhile. It's a matter of figuring out tools you have at your disposal, and to work within the constraints of your budget.

Good point, because not everyone wants the swag, especially if it’s not something higher quality.

Yep. And the people who didn't want a shirt or swag can feel good paying a little bit less at check out.

Let's say, three to five years from now, you have been invited to be a speaker at TEDx. What would be your dream TED Talk subject?

The thing I continually come back to is that events take place in a short blip in time, and so much mobilization of resources happens within this short amount of time, and then it's over. So what we have the ability to do with these short amounts of time, is to create an atmosphere, or an environment, where we can show what's possible. And then what would happen if we can learn from that, and then extrapolate our learnings into our broader communities, into our schools, and hospitals, and the systems of local governance, and also into our household daily waste management.  Then maybe we can move towards more sustainable communities, and an overall livable planet.  

Events can serve to show what's possible that's not currently in practice broadly in society. If we can define and control the inputs and outputs of that small space, and really set a positive example, I believe events can serve as the catalyst to send these learnings for pilot projects and that can get translated more broadly into our communities.

And if you look at festival culture, especially where there's camping, you're essentially creating small towns and villages. And you've got to deal with human waste, food waste, and man-made waste.  You've got to deal with water supply and management, cleaning, and all of your energy needs, right. And this is a mini town, where we can really test out what would work for our cities and communities. And this is something that we could all feel good about.