Breadcrumb
10-Year and Beyond Timeline
- CU won the the Fan Engagement Award in the Pac-12 Zero Waste Basketball Challenge.
- Achieved an 85.2% diversion rate with over 770 pounds of compost and over 1000 pounds of recycling at their Zero Waste basketball game against USC.
- The RGS volunteer team consisted of 125 people covering over 25 games this basketball season for 350 hours of service.
- CU won the Pac-12 Zero Waste Football Challenge
- Achieved 88.2% diversion rate for their Zero Waste football game against UCLA with over 7,500 pounds in recycling and over two-and-a-half tons in compost.
- Colorado staff and volunteers dedicated over 1,800 hours to sustainable game day operations for six home football games and 22 official tailgates through hand sorting waste, fan engagement, vendor training, and zero waste messaging. These efforts reflected a season diversion rate of 84.4% at Folsom Field.
- At our Green Game, our final home game against Arizona, we diverted 91% of the waste from landfills, including 1,200 pounds of bottles and cans for recycling and 1500 pounds of organic waste sent to a compost yard.
- Ralphie’s Green Stampede had student volunteers at over 20 men's and women's basketball games in the 2021-2022 season.
- CUAD signs the UN Race to Zero Campaign pledge. RGS launches a sustainable transportation campaign with Google called, Gears 4 Green.
- Achieved 86.49% diversion rate for their Zero Waste football game against Oregon State, including nearly three-and-a-half tons in compost, over one-and-a-half tons in bottles and cans and more than a ton of cardboard.
- Received the Innovation Award in the Pac-12 Zero Waste Football Challenge.
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RGS worked within COVID fan parameters by distributing weekly Sustainable Gameday Packs with Ball aluminum cups and Eco-Products food ware.
- CU Athletics signs the United Nations Sports for Climate Action Framework. CU Athletics and RGS partner with Ball Corporation to introduce a new, infinitely recyclable aluminum cup in Folsom Stadium. Athletics Director Rick George commits to a single-use plastic-free Athletics program in 2020 and convenes the RGS Strategic Task Force to set the next decades' strategy for sustainability in CU Athletics.
- CU became the nation’s first university to commit to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework.
- CU won the Pac-12 Zero Waste Football Challenge for the second year.
- Introduced the Ball Aluminum Beverage Cup at CU’s first football game. The cup is fully recyclable--and it eliminates the use of single use plastic or compostable cups.
- The CU Athletics Department committed to being free of plastics of any kind by fall 2020.
- For the game selected on Nov. 9 vs. Stanford, the Buffs achieved an 86.33% stadium diversion rate, including over 9,000 pounds in compost, over 3,500 pounds in bottles and cans and over 2,300 pounds in landfill.
- CU Athletics Partners with Solaroo Energy and launches Buffs Community Solar, offering discounts to residential solar installations.
- CU won the Pac-12 Zero Waste Football Challenge.
- Achieved 91.82% stadium diversion rate in Zero Waste football game against Arizona State, including over 8,700 pounds in compost, over 3,900 pounds in bottles and cans and over 1,300 pounds to landfill.
- RGS partners with Google to engage fans regarding where to build a new B-Cycle docking station. RGS hosts a nationwide Sports Sustainability Think Camp to create a Fan Engagement Playbook used to influence fans toward more sustainable actions at home, work and play.
- CU won the Pac-12 Zero Waste Football Challenge Fan Engagement Award.
- We created a video featuring student-athletes in collaboration with Ralphies' Green Stampede that encouraged support for the “Water for the West” pledge program.
- 3rd Place Pac-12 Zero Waste Football Challenge: 87% diversion rate at Zero Waste football game.
- RGS establishes three new conservation programs, each the first of its kind: a car-free, Zero Waste Tailgate in partnership with Ball Corporation on Franklin Field, Wells Fargo Foundation joins RGS to kick off Water for the West, a campaign to reduce water use in Athletics and restore water inputs to the Colorado River Basin, and finally, FLOWS - Foundations for Leaders Organizing for Water and Sustainability. In partnership with Wells Fargo and Koehler, FLOWS students installed low-flow plumbing fixtures in hundreds of Boulder low-income homes to help offset CU water use. The Champion’s Center is completed, along with the Dal Ward Center renovation, both achieve LEED Platinum status. The construction of the Indoor Practice Facility marks the first net-zero energy athletics facility in the NCAA, adding 850 kW of on-site solar energy generation and another LEED Platinum facility to CUAD, bringing the total to four just in Athletics.
- 2nd Place Pac-12 Zero Waste Basketball Challenge: 92% diversion rate at the Zero Waste basketball game.
- Recognized at the White House’s Green Sports Day.
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RGS partners with sponsor PepsiCo Recycling to create the Bring Your Bottle Back to Life campaign to promote a circular materials economy. CU begins operation of the new Grounds Recycling and Operations Center to continue processing gameday and campus materials.
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BASF extends sponsorship to expand Zero Waste to the CU Event Center (formerly Coors Event Center), bringing basketball and volleyball into the fold as Zero Waste events.
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The addition of a new indoor practice facility becomes the first LEED certified Athletics facility at CU, earning LEED Platinum.
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RGS earns a top ranking in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Game Day Challenge. CU becomes a member of the Green Sports Alliance (GSA) during their inaugural year, as the GSA leads a wave of environmentalism in the sports industry.
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RGS ushers in new partners Eco-Products and the Wells Fargo Foundation. Eco-Products supplies compostable cookware to phase-out plastics from Folsom Stadium and CU Events Center. The CU Environmental Center and Student Government partners with Native Energy to fund renewable energy and carbon offset projects sufficient to offset CU Athletics’ and student government’s carbon footprint.
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BASF joins as a founding sponsor of RGS, supplying compostable trash bags to expand and enhance Zero Waste efforts.
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With the support of White Wave Foods, recycling collection begins at CU Football Games and Ralphie’s Green Stampede is founded as the first NCAA D1 sports sustainability program, rolling out a Folsom Field zero waste program.