JACK GROH in '93 came to the NFL with a simple idea: put recycling bins around the Georgia Dome for Super Bowl XXVIII. Twenty-four years later, Groh, now the Dir of the NFL Environmental Program, has achieved that goal and much more. For his achievements, he will be honored tonight by the Green Sports Alliance with the Environmental Leadership Award at the organization’s annual summit in Sacramento. Groh has a bad back and is unable to travel, so his wife, SUSAN, will accept the award. “It’s a tremendous honor,” Jack Groh said yesterday, “especially because it comes from folks who are working in the same field and trying to accomplish the same things.” Groh has spearheaded numerous environmental projects during his 14-year tenure with the league, including annual sports equipment and school supply donation drives, community garden plantings and urban forestry projects. After Super Bowl LI, Groh led an effort to donate excess food and carpeting to local Houston charities, helping the event become one of the most environmentally friendly in the sporting world. The league even engages the average fan with e-waste recycling rallies, during which people can donate electronic waste through a sponsorship with Verizon. “People are surprised how fun it is to recycle their e-waste,” Groh said. He credits the league’s receptiveness to sustainability initiatives as a main factor behind these advances. “The award is in my name, but the real recipients are the National Football League,” Groh said, because the league “has supported and encouraged every single project we’ve tried for 25 years." He added, "A lot of things we proposed were new and had never been tried before. A lot of the things we do have become standard operating procedure.” NFL and Groh are now working to eliminate compostable items from trash bags at NFL events, an effort he says will take time. “At the end of the day, we want to leave a host city better than we found it,” Groh said, “That’s the bottom line for us.”
