A doctorate in engineering secured Tatsuo Okada a high paying job and a comfortable lifestyle after graduation, but today he chooses to work for free.
The Japanese businessman witnessed the devastating effects of harsh construction practices on the environment early on in his career and knew he had to do something.
 Jane Poynter, president of GSA-USA is working to have team captains for GSA in every major U.S. city by the end of 2010. |
"I thought, who could be serious about clean air and clean water and I thought sports," he said with an excited giggle.
Okada founded Global Sports Alliance (GSA) over eight years ago in Tokyo. The idea behind GSA was never about the sports themselves, it is about utilizing the large population of people who love sports to promote positive actions for the environment, Okada said.
One of the organizations biggest goals: to make every person who loves sports around the world an eco-player. The idea behind eco-players comes from sportsmanship ethics like fair-play. Just like athletes obey the rules and ethics of their respective sports, eco-players are ethical about their environment, Okada said.
Sports enthusiasts account for over one billion people worldwide, nearly one sixth of the entire world population. GSA’s ambitious "one billion awareness project" might seem like an impossible task, but Okada is confident the goal is within reach.
Although he does not plan on physically counting every eco-player Okada has another way of determining when the one billion person benchmark has been reached. "If the word eco-play becomes part of every dictionary in every language, that’s how we will measure success," Okada said.
Some of these eco-players have joined the GSA network as members. Individual and corporate memberships are available and cost anywhere from $100 to $10,000 per year. The money goes toward funding the eco-flag movement and other basic costs, Okada said.
With a global operating budget of just $450,000 GSA focuses on rallying support from volunteers and the community.
"There are a lot of companies that feel sustainability is important…but they just don’t know what to do," Okada said.
GSA has now spread to 30 countries and flown almost 9,000 ‘eco-flags’ made from recycled plastic bottles serving as a reminder to sports goers to doing something good for the environment.
By its 10 year anniversary, in November 2009, Okada wants to see the eco-flag movement spread to 100 countries with more than 1,000 team captains.
GSA volunteers organize events like road side trash clean-up projects and tennis ball re-use programs, but that’s just part of the goal.
"After the events we ask people to look at the garbage and think about it," Okada said. "The ultimate goal is to change people’s mentality."
The eco-flag movement these volunteers help organize is making its way to the Southwest with the decision to make Tucson the GSA’s headquarters in the United States.
British-born Jane Poynter dabbled in everything from researching the earth’s biosphere, to managing a space development company, but her most recent venture is as the president of GSA-USA.
The first task will focus on expanding GSA in Arizona, Poynter said while juggling dozens of e-mails and papers in her home office, one of the three spaces in Tucson where she has been working without a paycheck to start GSA-USA.
"We’re the only organization that’s really focused on sports here in the U.S.," she said raising her eyebrows. "By the end of 2010, we want to have teams in every major city in the U.S."
Team captains bring together groups of sports enthusiasts in their communities to do ‘stuff’ for the environment, Poynter said. An example of this ‘stuff’ includes a GSA program in Japan that kept over 1 million tennis balls from going into landfills by giving the old balls to local schools that use them on the bottom of chairs to reduce noise in their classrooms, Okada said. This is also a program that GSA Phoenix team captain Paul Brooker hopes to implement in the U.S.
"People don’t need to believe that Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’ is true, but I just look at things and it’s just so obvious that there’s a problem," Brooker said. "GSA is just an avenue to get that message across."
Although GSA-USA has not officially held any events in the U.S., El Tour de Tucson organizers have supported the organization from the beginning.
"We’re like brothers," said Richard DeBernardis of Okada, his long-time friend whom he met while studying at UCLA. Working as a liaison between Japan and the U.S., DeBernardis was instrumental in bringing GSA to the U.S.
"We hope the U.S. will become the example that Tatsuo can introduce to other countries," DeBernardis said. "We’re just more organized than the other countries. It’s going to be real big one day."
Fundraising is already underway for a renovation and expansion of Hi Corbett Field, but so far City of Tucson officials cannot confirm if green technology will be part of the ballpark’s renovation.
"Green building will be part of the discussion from here on out," said C.T. Revere, chief of staff for City Councilwoman Nina Trasoff. "There is most definitely an interest. We’d gladly welcome any partners in our pursuit of a more sustainable city."
Catherine O’Connor is a Tucson-based freelance writer.
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