Making orange green? A critical carbon footprinting of Tennessee football gameday tourism.

Anthropogenic climate change is an imminent threat. In order to curb the effects of climate change, economic industries including tourism must assess their contributions to the overall phenomenon and develop creative solutions. As carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions represent a major reason why global tourism is contributing to climate change, carbon footprinting can help identify which aspects of individual tourism events are least sustainable. This case study seeks to assess the total carbon footprint of four seasons of American college football. The fan journey to the college football spectate represents a tourism experience and therefore can and should be assessed for its ecological impact. The subject of this case study is the University of Tennessee, an institution with one of the largest football stadiums in the United States. Using an extensive geographic sample of ticketing data from Tennessee's home games during the 2015–2018 seasons, a carbon footprint was estimated for each game, each contributing polluter, and each season. The total season footprint over the four years was estimated to be 154,717,114 kg CO₂eq. This study presents both a methodology for studying spectator sporting events in sport tourism and a framework by which tourism can begin to assess its contributions to the global carbon footprint. It also demonstrates grounded consequences for often trivialized ideas of fandom and place-based identity. Additionally, it highlights the need for tourism organizations and governments to consider policy and management practices that account for and reduce the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]