Twenty-nine venues and teams across the GOAL Member Network were recognized on Tuesday night for their ongoing commitment to sustainability.

As a group, there were three zero waste shows; eight venues had a reduction in single-use plastics; and four arenas offered free or discounted alternative transportation for attendees.

The world’s most popular sport faces rising threats from climate change. Now, the industry is working to address its own emissions contributions.

Front Office Sports (FOS), the leading multi-platform media and news organization covering the business of sports, today released its inaugural Most Sustainable list.

The sustainability program from founding members including Oak View Group has released a report with data from 40 U.S., Canada and U.K. venues.

Working through OVG’s Green Operations & Advanced Leadership (GOAL) initiative, the new partnership will implement EIC standards throughout OVG convention centers, including training venue employees for the Sustainable Event Professional Certification and the Certified Meeting Professional designation. GOAL will engage in ongoing data collection and analysis across all venues and help properties reach their sustainability objectives through best-practice sharing, measurement tools, and on-site consulting.

A leader in live venue development around the globe, Oak View Group is also a groundbreaker in sustainability.

Sustainability efforts and legislative requirements are leading the consideration of all-electric sports venues, if the owner can withstand the sticker shock. Oak View Group’s Green Operations and Advanced Leadership (GOAL) organization provided Sports Business Journal with annual energy and electricity consumption averages from GOAL member venues to study this further.

Oak View Group's commitment to sustainability extends beyond individual arenas, with initiatives like the Green Operations & Advanced Leadership (GOAL) program, which aims to promote sustainability across the live entertainment industry. GOAL provides resources and guidance to venues looking to operate more sustainably.

“We will provide students with environmental data from venues for them to analyze, compete with, and ultimately gain a hands-on understanding of the intersection of sports and sustainability,” offered Kristen Fulmer, OVG’s head of sustainability and director of GOAL.

The Climate Pledge Arena changed those notions, and a new sustainability standard, GOAL, aims to share its lessons with other venues, large and small. GOAL stands for Green Operations and Advanced Leadership and is a sustainability platform for arenas, stadiums, and other public assembly venues in the sports and entertainment industry.

Best-In-Class Sports/Entertainment Venues and Organizations Commit to Collectively Address Climate Action and Social Impact

“Within the GOAL system, we’re trying to encourage people to survey, do visual assessments periodically. Even just making some educated assumptions goes a long way to measuring what that carbon footprint is - What we haven’t seen as much is that true measurement of carbon footprint."

CFG Bank Arena is one of 18 founding members of Green Operations and Advanced Leadership (GOAL), a nascent platform that helps sports and entertainment venues operate in environmentally sound ways.

Sports venue operators interested in running their spaces more sustainably have long been left mostly on their own in figuring out how to do so. Oak View Group wants to change that with the launch of GOAL (Green Operations and Advanced Leadership).