Sports Briefs Women's lacrosse offsets carbon for team travel

Author: Emma Gardner

The women's lacrosse team has jumped aboard the College-wide effort to be carbon neutral in the past few years, combining community service and environmental concerns in the form of carbon offsets. Each season the team takes a vote to determine which organization or cause will be the recipient of the program's fundraising efforts, and over the past few years has turned its attention to green firms that specialize in carbon offsets. NativeEnergy, an organization dedicated to helping companies achieve carbon neutrality, "helped us figure out our carbon use and then directed us towards several projects that we could support," said head coach Missy Foote.

The team maintains a personal connection with NativeEnergy as its senior manager of business development, Anne Hambleton '85, is an alumna of the women's lacrosse program and takes a special interest in encouraging the athletic programs at Middlebury to become carbon neutral. The players on the team were first inspired to become carbon neutral on the road to a game a few years ago when team members watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and began to "understand the consequences of inaction," according to Foote. "Our team is committed to this idea."