NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland – Sometime soon, Yale researchers hope to provide an adaptable, transferable and sustainable model for athletics departments to be environmentally conscious.

Attendees of the “Best Green Practices at Work on Campus” Association-wide menu session Wednesday at the NCAA Convention heard from Sara Smiley Smith, a researcher working on the Yale project, and Coca-Cola’s April Crow, who runs the company’s sustainable-packaging area.

Smith said her team has spent three months learning how athletics departments operate and is now at work on a plan to make Yale a model of sustainability. The group is addressing:

• A strategic plan for sustainability

• Sustainable-event guidelines

• Student-athlete engagement

• Creating a transferable model

• Building a best-practices database.

“What we’re doing at Yale is a little unique because we’re trying to go a bit deeper to make our day-to-day operations more sustainable,” Smith said.

Crow informed the group about Coke’s efforts in the sustainability area, including several programs available to college campuses. “Recyclemania” is a Coke and EPA-sponsored program that pits college campuses against each other in a 10-week effort to collect items for recycling. In 2008, more than 400 campuses participated.

Crow also talked about the company’s packaging designs and how they are evolving with sustainability in mind. She shared with the group a new recycling commercial for the company’s “Give It Back” campaign that debuted during the premiere of “American Idol” on January 13.

Ivy League Executive Director Jeff Orleans also reported to the assembly on the work of the NCAA Green Team, the NCAA-established group working on environmental and sustainability issues. Orleans outlined work the NCAA is doing internally, including possible changes in championships operations, day-to-day operations, interaction with the membership and involvement of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee in strategic planning.

The Green Team is also looking to generate information for member institutions to help communicate best practices.

All of the speakers, including Angelo State student-athlete Christopher Odom, emphasized that one person, one campus, one conference cannot accomplish the goals of sustainability and awareness alone. Everyone must work together.

“It’s easy for us to do little things on campus, and if we can get institutions nationwide to join us, that can add up pretty quickly,” Odom said.