Rosenborg Tackle Global Warming

We’ve already learned that Barack Obama is a West Ham fan, and now we know who Al Gore supports. Or at least who he should support. Rosenborg Trondheim – who used to dominate the Norwegian Premier League but finished fifth last season – are making serious efforts to go green and are hoping other teams will follow. They’ve just spent $40,000 to make the club more energy efficient, money they expect to earn back in about half a year’s time. The new setup includes:

• Heating and ventilation that switches off during office hours
• Water-saving shower-heads in the dressing room
• Insulated water pipes to prevent heat loss
• More judicious use of under-soil heating
• Computer program to switch off floodlights when no-one’s there

The players are doing their part too (well one of them is anyway) as winger Michael Jamtfall has started driving an electric car.

Apparently the measures will reduce Rosenborg’s annual energy use by the equivalent of 40 Norwegian homes. And if you’re familiar with Norway you’ll know that’s 40 homes where the heating’s on a lot.

Big respect to Rosenborg for making the effort, and here’s hoping the idea will catch on elsewhere. I’d love to know how environmentally friendly all the European big boys are, and what tiny drop in the ocean of their enormous budgets it would take to improve their energy efficiency.

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Category: World Football