What does it actually mean for a sports team, league or venue to be sustainable? Long before that question became a standard line in a stadium's annual report, a GW School of Business faculty member built a tool to answer it directly.
The GW Green Sports Scorecard, created by Lisa Delpy Neirotti, Ph.D., Faculty Director of the MS in Sport Management (MSSM) program, is a self-assessment tool that helps sport organizations evaluate, track and improve their environmental footprint. Launched in 2008 as a joint initiative between the School of Business' Institute for Corporate Responsibility and the Sport Management Program, the Scorecard arrived just as LEED certification was beginning to reshape how stadiums were designed and built, and years before the Olympic Games required host cities to detail their sustainability plans as part of every bid. GW was asking the sustainability question before most of the sport industry was asking it at all.
'We jumped in early. When you see a trend forming, you want to be the one already there, not catching up to it. That's been true of this scorecard since the beginning, and it's still true today.'
Lisa Delpy Neirotti, Ph.D.
Faculty Director, GW MS in Sport Management
What the Scorecard reflects, more than anything, is the kind of thinking that defines the GW MSSM program: faculty who identified a gap in the field early, and did something about it.
What the Scorecard Measures
The GW Green Sports Scorecard is a comprehensive self-assessment checklist that helps sport organizations measure their environmental sustainability across two areas: physical infrastructure, including energy systems, green roofs and water use; and day-to-day operational habits, including procurement decisions, recycling practices and how uniforms and equipment are laundered and maintained.
It is intentionally flexible rather than one-size-fits-all. Organizations that lease their venue can skip infrastructure questions outside their control and focus on the operational sections that apply to them. League offices, minor league teams, college athletic departments and major event organizers have all used it, each completing only the sections relevant to how they operate.
Built for Progress, Not Perfection
Sport organizations complete the Scorecard as a self-assessment, and the GW team, drawing on faculty, staff and student researchers, reviews the results and delivers a report identifying both short-term and long-term opportunities for improvement. Because the same organization can return year after year, it also functions as a progress tracker, a way to set a sustainability goal in one cycle and measure real movement in the next.
The tool was designed with a clear philosophy: sustainability progress matters more than sustainability perfection. Rather than reducing complex operations to a single grade, it helps organizations see where they stand and chart a realistic path forward, whether that means committing to a single new policy or pursuing a full sustainability overhaul.
'The biggest thing we've seen is that organizations realize they can make small, meaningful changes, even if they can't check every box. That's the point. It's a way to identify where you stand and build a real plan to do better, one year at a time.'
Lisa Delpy Neirotti, Ph.D., Faculty Director, GW MS in Sport Management
Why Sport Sustainability Has Never Mattered More
When the GW Green Sports Scorecard launched in 2008, most sport organizations were just beginning to grapple with what environmental sustainability even meant for their operations. Today it is a business imperative. According to APTIM's 2025 Sustainable Sport Index, 62% of professional sport venues in the U.S. now employ a dedicated sustainability staff member and 57% have formal sustainability policies. The same report found that venues with active sustainability programs report increased sponsorship revenue, stronger media coverage and higher visitor satisfaction, making the business case as compelling as the environmental one.
At the league level, the shift is equally striking. Through NBA Green, the league has committed to halving its carbon emissions by 2030 as a signatory to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework, with every arena now participating in a dedicated sustainability task force. The NFL Green program is moving toward league-wide environmental standards for host stadiums, beginning with Super Bowl LX in 2026. On the global stage, the Paris 2024 Olympic Games achieved a 54.6% reduction in carbon emissions compared to previous editions and were the first Games fully built around the IOC's sustainability roadmap, with sustainability requirements now embedded in every future Olympic bid.
Washington, D.C. has become a visible hub for this work at the local level too, including reusable cup programs at venues like Merriweather Post Pavilion and the 9:30 Club. The conversations the Scorecard prompted years ago, around concessions, waste, vendor partnerships and procurement, are now standard planning questions for venue operators and event organizers across the country.
The questions GW was asking in 2008 are now requirements. Although organizations completing the Scorecard today are likely to score significantly better than early participants did, it's not because the standard has dropped. It's because the industry has finally caught up.
Sustainability in the Classroom and Beyond
Sustainability and green facility management are woven directly into MSSM coursework, including the program's sport facilities and marketing classes, where students examine what sponsors look for, how venues reduce their footprint and what best practices look like across the sport ecosystem. Students with a research interest in sustainability have the opportunity to contribute to ongoing work in this space, including projects connected to the Scorecard itself.
It is, in its own way, a portrait of the GW approach to sport management education, built by a faculty member who saw a gap in the field and filled it.
Complete the Green Sports Scorecard Assessment
The GW Green Sports Scorecard is free and open to any sport organization, team, venue or event.
Take the Green Sports Scorecard
Learn More About the MSSM Program
A Master of Science in Sport Management (MSSM) is a graduate degree that prepares students for business and leadership roles across the sport industry: professional teams and leagues, international governing bodies, agencies, media companies, brands and universities.
At the George Washington University (GW), that means a business-school curriculum covering not just sport-specific expertise, but analytics, sponsorship, marketing, law, media, communications and event management—a full toolkit that today's employers demand. The curriculum is reinforced through real-world consulting projects and experiential learning opportunities with organizations across the sport industry, helping students apply classroom concepts to professional challenges.
