Useful definitions
Carbon Neutral
“Carbon” is often used as a shorthand for greenhouse gasses in general. Carbon dioxide is the key greenhouse gas that is driving climate change. Carbon Neutral is when the activities that cause Carbon dioxide to be released in the atmosphere, are reduced, or offset to a total of zero.
Carbon footprint
A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gasses that we generate by our actions. For individuals this is usually made up of things like which car we drive, our home electricity, a holiday flight and what we eat. For sport events and businesses, its mostly things like the energy used for lighting and manufacturing, travel there and back, the construction of the stadium as well as waste.
Carbon credit
A carbon credit is the name of a tradeable environmental certificate. They don’t exist as a certificate on paper – they are notional certificates. Each carbon credit represents one tonne of stored or avoided, carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon credits are the market mechanism used to incentivize businesses and farmers to store or avoid carbon dioxide being emitted into the air.
Offsetting carbon
Offseting carbon is when we buy and surrender carbon credits to compensate for your emissions. By paying for a carbon credit, you are paying for an activity that either prevents the release of, reduces or removes Carbon dioxide, elsewhere. The effect is you neutralizing your impact. If you neutralise all of your impact, you can reach Carbon Zero, or Net zero.
Why is climate change bad?
Too much carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere means temperatures will continue to rise. This affects our ecosystems and agriculture. Climate change (and more hot weather) means less rain, which means droughts in many parts of the world. It means extreme heat, heatwaves, and heat strokes. It also means floods and greater precipitation in other areas of the world. It will result in playing sports in extreme weather – if not abandoned. It means sport playing on compromised cricket pitches and soggy soccer fields, playing reduced games or less overs or fewer netball goals because of rain or heat disruptions. It means less sport.
What is the ASC?
Australian Sports Climate (ASC) is a sports targeted, climate focused, organisation with the goal of assisting the sports industry to transition to a carbon neutral future by; 1. helping to address energy efficiency and renewable energy supply, raising funds and awareness to decarbonise, and 2. assisting sports fans, player associations, the sporting organisations and their members and events, to measure and reduce their own carbon footprint. Save the world, basically.
Energy and renewable advice
Do you just want to run an idea past an independent person that knows this industry? Would it help to have a conversation with someone that knows a bit about energy efficiency or solar, but that has nothing to gain from it? We are here for you.
Acknowledgement of Country
We would like to acknowledge that this website and our company exists on the traditional lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and pay our respects to Elders both past, present, and future.