UW-Madison athletics officials have created a unique way to use the UW Badgers' home football season to reduce carbon emissions.
According to Justin Doherty, UW-Madison assistant athletic director, the effort to create a ""carbon-neutral"" football season involves offsetting the amount of carbon that is expended during home football games because of practices like fans traveling to and from the game and the use of electricity.
He said along with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, UW-Madison calculated the amount of carbon emitted at home football games and will pay for carbon ""credits"" as a part of the Chicago Climate Exchange.
The money spent on the credits is then spent on reducing an equivalent amount of carbon emissions elsewhere.
Doherty said UW-Madison partnered with Madison Gas and Electric to execute the initiative.
""It's a way for [UW athletics], CALS and Madison Gas and Electric to create awareness of environmental issues,"" he said. ""And because it's at football games, it's a unique way of doing it.""
Doherty added that UW-Madison also aims to reduce its impact on the environment in other ways at football games.
""We have a pretty extensive plastic recycling effort at the stadium, so that's another way we try to address these environmental issues,"" he said.
UW-Madison is the first Big Ten school to go completely carbon-neutral for a home football season.
