From little acorns to mighty oaks: Cleveland’s collaborative approach to sustainability

While the Cavaliers have had an internal sustainability team – affectionately known as the sustainability squad – for a number of years, efforts have really doubled since the introduction of Oak View Group’s GOAL initiative, which stands for Green Operations and Advanced Leadership.

Oak View Group, a US-based professional sports and commercial real estate company, launched GOAL alongside the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and its State Farm Arena, Fenway Sports Group and green building expert Jason McLennan, in 2022.

The Cavaliers’ Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse formed part of the founding circle of venues, alongside the likes of Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, UBS Arena in Belmont Park, New York, PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh and Co-op Live in Manchester in the UK.

There was no doubting the passion of the sustainability squad in place at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. However, the efforts needed a guiding hand, which came in the form of Vice President, Sustainability and Environmental Services, Danielle Doza – the first such senior-level sustainability leader to be hired by an NBA franchise.

Doza has been in the role for around a year and is currently putting together the first sustainability strategy for the Cleveland Cavaliers and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

After being involved in the beginnings of the GOAL initiative, the organisation could see that being more environmentally conscious should become intrinsic to its operations.

“Sustainability – it’s important. It can really benefit our organisation,” Doza tells Global Sustainable Sport.

“We have always had a very robust social impact and equity team. Community impact is really important to us and we do a lot around that. And this is an extension of that in a way of our commitment to our community and more responsible practices.

“We’ve got a nice history there and strong relationships within the community, which is really great. [Environmental sustainability] is just a natural extension of that, and we discussed how we can make a deeper impact.

“The organisation decided to create a full-time position and bring someone in that could develop and lead strategy. Also, the organisation intentionally made it a senior level position, so that this person could have influence, be in the room with our leadership group, and really drive strategy.”

Early steps

The Cavaliers and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, along with American Hockey League’s Cleveland Monsters, recently announced their first sustainability-focused partnership with WM, a provider of environmental solutions and one of the largest recycling businesses in North America.

WM will support all three entities in developing their environmental sustainability visions and strategies, while also promoting positive practices across Northeast Ohio.

“WM are essentially an extension of our sustainability team with their advisory services, so we are really lucky to have access to their consulting group on sustainability,” says Doza. “We’ve already hit the ground running with some things, like working on better signage, better communication for team members and evaluating our materials. We’ll also be working more on fan engagement and education this season, which I am excited about.

“I am working on a broader strategy – a holistic, comprehensive sustainability strategy that will be rolled out internally. I’m really excited about it. This summer, I did 19 focus groups across the company to gather information about what sustainability means for our team members, gauge where people are at in their understanding, and what is important to our team members.”

Doza explains that this information will help to develop the sustainability strategy with collaboration the “key to making a difference”.

Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse hosts between 175 to 200 ticketed events a year, and its only tenants are the Cavaliers and Monsters. The 19,432-capacity venue also hosts concerts.

“We are the only tenant in this building, so we control everything and we run all the operations here. So when it comes to waste and materials, fans are going to be getting the same types of food and beverage or things like that,” explains Doza.

“That makes it a little bit easier. We’ve got fan crossover, or sometimes people are only here for concerts. So perhaps one of the trickier things is going to be fan communication and education, because not everyone’s coming to Cavs games, or for concerts and vice versa.

“So how do we effectively communicate to fans coming to Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse that may be only here once or twice a year? We understand that, and we’re going to be testing some things out. I think engaging folks is important, and we’ll be increasing our in-arena signage to help avoid contamination, reduce waste to landfill etc.”

Cavs in the community

Neighbours include the Cleveland Guardians Major League Baseball (MLB) team, with the 34,830-capacity Progressive Field a stone’s throw away (if you have a pitcher’s arm) and part of the same plaza – Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex in downtown Cleveland.

Additionally, Cleveland is home to the Browns National Football League (NFL) team.

“I do get calls from other folks sometimes with questions and I’m always glad to share that knowledge, because we can only make a greater impact if we do things together,” says Doza.

Together, the three sporting entities form the ‘Cleveland 3-Team Alliance’ (CL3 Alliance), which aims to create lasting transformational social change within communities across Northeast Ohio.

The Cavaliers can also turn to the NBA for guidance around sustainability. The league has a working group which meets several times a year as part of its NBA Green initiative.

Each year, the Cavaliers publish an impact report around its efforts in the community. The NBA franchise has recently published its 2023-24 report, detailing its work in the community around education, food security, wellness and recreation, community investment, and social justice and equity.

The report also includes the Cavaliers’ economic impact across the community, with events attracting more than one million guests every year.

As Doza notes, upwards of 10 NBA teams out of the 30 now have a member of staff with sustainability in their title, demonstrating a degree of progress. However, there is a broad acknowledgement that much more needs to be done in the sport.

The sheer number of road games in the NBA presents an obvious challenge.

As of five years ago, the league was the biggest polluter among the US major leagues in terms of its travel schedule, even though it was behind the NFL in terms of the average carbon footprint per game. In an effort to mitigate the problem, the NBA introduced baseball-style series in which teams play a number of back-to-back contests, rather than traditional standalone games. This led to a reduction of 50,000 miles in terms of team aviation impacts for the 2022-23 NBA season.

More broadly, the league launched an NBA Arena Sustainability Task Force with all NBA arenas last year and also reduced plastic bottles by 80% across the league’s 18 offices. The immediate-term target is to reduce the league’s carbon footprint by 50% by 2030, as part of a commitment to the UN Sport for Climate Action Framework.

Collaboration will be crucial in striving to achieve such a lofty goal – but that is an approach the likes of the Cavaliers are ready to embrace.

Images: Courtesy of Cleveland Cavaliers