By Sarah Elizabeth Brown
To the right of David Chernushenko’s front door is a bronze coloured, metal mailbox with a round sticker that says in red letters, “Save Trees – No Junkmail Please.”
Chernushenko is the president of Green & Gold Inc., a three-person company that develops sustainable, or “green,” business strategies for sports organizations that are looking to reduce waste and conserve resources.
Not only does he make a living advising sports clubs and Olympic bid committees around the world on how to be environmentally friendly, but he takes his own advice to heart.
Just outside the small office in his home’s basement is part of a $6,000 solar-power system Chernushenko has recently installed. The system consists of six solar panels on his roof, four batteries to store energy for when the sun isn’t shining, and all the necessary circuitry, powers his office, the basement and his home’s living room.
“I decided about three months ago as a company and as an individual that I wanted to ‘walk the walk,’ ” says Chernushenko, 36. “It seemed to me as a company that advocates sustainable sport and air quality, we should take steps to protect that air quality.”
Chernushenko created Green & Gold in April 1998, but has been involved in sustainable sports for five or six years, serving as Director of Sustainable Sport for the Delphi Group, an Ottawa-based consulting firm, before leaving to form his own company.
He says he first saw a need for sustainable development in the sports sector after hearing Canadian athletes gripe about a lack of recycling and other poor environmental practices at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
Now Chernushenko advises Olympic, Pan-Am, and Canada Games committees on environmental management plans and how to turn those plans into a competitive advantage that will help them win bids to host events. The consultant is currently an environmental advisor for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Summer Games and Toronto’s bid for the 2008 Olympics.
“The Sydney Olympics is being built on a former landfill,” says Chernushenko. “It’s contaminated and no one wanted to touch it. (To win) the bid, the government made a commitment to clean it up.”
Chernushenko says Sydney’s commitment to the environment gave it the edge it needed to win the bid. He says many of the venues are being built using sustainable design principles, including “green” choices of building materials, waste management and water conservation systems.
Improving rail and bus systems is also involved. And the athlete’s village will be “the world’s first solar-powered suburb,” says Chernushenko.
“A huge event can do great harm if done wrong,” he says. “But if done right, it can leave a great environmental legacy.”
One of Chernushenko’s projects closer to home is the 18-field Ultimate Sports Park near Manotick Station for the Ottawa Carleton Ultimate Association (OCUA). Ultimate is a team sport akin to soccer, except a frisbee is passed instead of a ball. Chernushenko co-developed the park with Larry Pegg of Ecoview Developments.
Mike Harley, OCUA’s president, says having the park built using sustainable principles “just seemed like a good thing to do.”
“We try to market ourselves as a benign sport. We don’t want to trash the environment we play in.”
Of the parks’s 100 acres, only 30 were developed for ultimate and soccer fields, including a project to research how to grow turf without using chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
The other 70 undeveloped acres of wetlands and forest won’t be touched. The plan is to use that area for low-impact trails and eventually have an information centre to educate visitors about sustainable practices. So far, the park has already hosted several tournaments, including the Canadian National Ultimate Champion-ships in August, which attracted 8,000 to 10,000 spectators, says Pegg.
The park’s electronically controlled irrigation system uses 129 separate watering heads to spread water efficiently and evenly. A pond was dug to hold extra water and will also become a home for waterfowl. Eventually, says Pegg, the hope is to link the pond with a wastewater treatment facility.
An important part of the project is the research being done on growing turf without using chemical fertilizers and pesticides, says Pegg, whose background is in landscaping.
The site was originally a sod farm and the soil was stressed and lacked nutrients, says Pegg. Some of the 1,400 yards of compost the Region donated to the project are being used in the research and to increase organic content.
Pegg estimates the park has cost about $750,000 to buy and develop. Some aspects of the project, such as the high-tech irrigation system, cost 20 to 30 per cent more than they would for a non-sustainable facility.
But according to Pegg, the sheer size of the park made it economically efficient to build.
“If you went out to do this on an individual (field) basis, it would certainly be more.”
Pegg says costs were also reduced by the $100,000 to $150,000 in donations they received, including the compost from the Region.
Chernushenko says being sustainable is not just a passing trend for businesses and sports organizations like the Olympics. “The smart ones are incurring the expense now and will be ahead later,” he says.
Reduced insurance costs for sustainable, environmentally safer projects and avoiding costly environmental reviews are two financial benefits for businesses using sustainable development principles, he says.
He says further pressure will come from tightening government regulations and consumer demand.
“Business owners are starting to see being sustainable as a competitive edge,” he says.