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U.S. OPEN

August 29, 2009

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

CHRIS WIDMAIER: Thank you, everybody, for joining us. I will ask Lucy S. Garvin, chairman of the board and president of the USTA to kick off this green press conference.
LUCY S. GARVIN: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming here on a Saturday to learn more about the 2009 US Open Green Initiatives. Last year the USTA launched a comprehensive Green Initiative program designed to make the US Open as environmentally friendly as possible.
This year, the USTA is going even further, launching a number of new programs while expanding on many of our existing initiatives.
You will read about these in the press release -- or you have read about them, I hope, that was distributed earlier. A great example of this expansion is our recycling program. Recycling is one of the basic tenets of any Green Initiative, and this year we are proud to announce that we are making it easier than ever before for everyone - players, fans, and employees - to take part in our recycling program by adding 500 recycling receptacles across this 42-acre facility.
The USTA is very fortunate to have so many wonderful people who are not only willing but actively seeking to be involved in assisting us in our efforts and helping to green the US Open.
I'm excited to introduce two people who are great friends to both the USTA and the environment. The first is Peter Lehner, the executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The NRDC is an invaluable partner in the USTA's Green Initiatives. The NRDC is the preeminent environmental agency in the United States, and they have long been committed to greening efforts across the sports landscape.
Thank you, Peter, for your resources, your wisdom, and your long-standing commitment to this project.
I would like to add at this time it was Billie Jean King who introduced the USTA to the NRDC, and we are very thankful to be part of this productive relationship.
Our next guest needs no introduction. You have seen him on the silver screen for many years, and you have laughed at his Emmy-award winning antics on NBC's 30 Rock. But what you may not know about Alec Baldwin is that he is seriously committed to helping preserve the environment, and he is also a serious tennis fan. I am thrilled that Alec, a native New Yorker and long-time
US Open fan, is joining Billie Jean King as the spokesman for our Green Initiatives.
Our second green spokesperson likewise needs no introduction. Not only is she the namesake of this magnificent facility, but two years ago she co-founded Green Slam, her own environmental initiative, and two weeks ago she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Billie Jean King.
Unfortunately, Billie is not feeling well today and is unable to be here. I know how much she wanted to share her thoughts with you on the importance of greening this facility and the US Open, and I'm certain that she will be back trumpeting these initiatives as soon as she is feeling up to it.
I would like to introduce to you Pam Derderian who is here to represent Green Slam as a co-founder of the organization. Pam can answer any of your questions regarding this week's announcement of Green Slam's inaugural Greenternship program. Once again, I'd like to thank you all for coming here today, and at this point I'd like to turn it over to Chris Widmaier again who will moderate the remainder of the press conference.
Thank you very much.
CHRIS WIDMAIER: Before we go to the Q&A, I'm just going to ask Peter and Alec to give us a couple of quick comments and we're going to show you a quick video. Peter, why don't you begin, please.
PETER LEHNER: Thank you.
I'm Peter Lehner from the NRDC. We're honored to be an entrusted advisor to the U.S. Tennis Association and their efforts to make the US Open greener and healthier for our planet. This is a huge opportunity. The US Tennis Open has the traffic and impact of 10 or 15 Super Bowls, as well as being the preeminent sports event of the year.
To name just a few of the USTA's accomplishments, they have placed recycling bins throughout the entire complex next to every trash can. This is one of the fastest expansions of recycling programs we've seen. This year for the first year they will be recycling all those tennis ball cans, which because they're both plastic and metal are extraordinarily difficult and they had to find a company that would be able to do that, really showing their dedication.
They've dramatically cut their energy use, and the energy they use is all renewable energy. With their food concessionaire, they've made extraordinary strides in increasing organic food, green foods, and the utensils that are used. Perhaps most important for the USTA's efforts to green the US Open is the message they send upstream to their vendors and downstream to the millions of fans both in the U.S. and around the world.
When the USTA changes how they buy something, their vendors are inspired to change, maybe even required to change. That gets other companies to learn the value of sustainability. When the USTA makes efforts to green the US Open, that sends a message that they care to their fans. Their fans are likewise inspired by the USTA and the US Open.
To spread that message, the US Open will be showing on their Jumbotrons throughout the tournament NRDC PSAs about the initiative throughout the next couple of weeks. Today, right now, we're going to premiere a brand new PSA narrated by our own Alec Baldwin and we will reintroduce a PSA featuring Billie Jean King.
Many, many thanks to both Alec, to Billie Jean King and to the US Tennis Open, U.S. Tennis Association and the US Open for their dedication to the environment. Without further ado, let's screen the PSAs.
(Showing video.)
CHRIS WIDMAIER: We're going to play that one for you today. As Peter said, the Billie Jean King one will be re-aired, as well, which we saw last year. Now we're going to ask for a few comments from a fellow Massapequa, New York native, with myself, Mr. Alec Baldwin.
ALEC BALDWIN: I just want to say thanks to Lucy Garvin and to the USTA, and thanks to Peter and NRDC because this kind of fit is really what's necessary for an organization like this, which hosts this event and manages this event, which is one of the biggest events in New York during the year. I come here every year, or nearly every year. I'm always overwhelmed by how many people come to this event.
Hopefully this will become a model and a blueprint for other such events in terms of recycling. These are very, very impactful on an environmental level. People come here and they need to use bathrooms and water and eat and consume and dispose, and travel and burn fuel to come here.
Whatever way that these reductions can be met, whether they're buying power through some program off the grid that's been generated renewably, they talk about the recycling program. I just want to say very quickly that to me recycling -- people have a dismissive attitude towards recycling, but to me recycling is the Pledge of Allegiance of the environmental movement. It's a thing you just do as an exercise. Even though you don't believe saving your bottles are going to make a difference, it's really a question of millions upon millions of people doing this on a daily basis.
The show I work on, we're not allowed to have plastic individual drinking bottles anymore. We all have a container and drink out of a cooler, so we reduce the plastic footprint that way.
I know we're pressed for time. I just want to say this is an issue we face across the country in terms of the disposal of wastes created in public spaces like airports and schools and parks, and I think that what the USTA is doing is exemplary, and of course they couldn't have a better partner than the NRDC, and I hope this is something that will spread to other such athletic competitive events and performing arts events around the country.
Thank you.
CHRIS WIDMAIER: Before we open it up to Q&A, I just wanted to point out to my left some of the green products that will be featured at the 2009 US Open, and I'm going to ask for a little help to just bring them up to the dais. One on the left, that's the one that is designed by Venus Williams for our green program, organic materials, obviously, and a host of other products that we believe are much more environmentally friendly and reduce the impact of the Open on the environment, including this tote bag and other materials. So at this point I'm going to open it up to questions. We have about four or five minutes. First question, please.

Q. Question for Peter. One part of tennis that seems very resistant to recycling is tennis balls in terms of actually recycling the material or maybe using recycled rubber instead of virgin rubber. You've launched this initiative with the US Open, with the USTA. What kind of pressure do you think can be brought to bear on Wilson to create greener tennis balls?
PETER LEHNER: I want to put it in context. What the USTA did this year to recycle the tennis ball cans was extraordinary, because you have to take that little metal rim off the plastic can. So that I think is a terrific first step and is inspiring.
Tennis balls are obviously a lot more complicated and have to be precision instruments. I've learned quite a bit about tennis balls for this event. Of course, the average tennis player can use any old ball, but at the Open they have to use newer balls.
I think what is happening today shows that this is where the future is. Whether Wilson will be able to make the changes next year or the year after as technology develops, I'm not sure, but it clearly shows that that is the future.
RITA GARZA: I do want to add that we have an extensive reduce program for the 60-some-odd thousand balls that will be resulting out of the US Open. We use them extensively throughout the year, years, at the USTA with all of our community programs, and then those balls, once they reach a bounce point, they get donated to community programs, to nursing homes, schools that need to put the tennis balls at the bottom of the chairs and tables.
We do our best to put the context of that ball, to make sure that it's reused, reused, and reused. That's the message we have learned from NRDC is that reuse is very important as well.

Q. Joining with the USTA was a natural fit to become the green spokesperson combining your passion for tennis as well as the importance of protecting the environment?
ALEC BALDWIN: Well, I think I'm someone who has been a fan of not just tennis but of the NRDC and their work, as well. So it was a fit of two organizations that I was really, really keen on their work.
I come to this event, as I said, most years. It is overwhelming how many people come here. I mean, this is crowded. There's a lot of people that love this event. The US Open has a very special kind of -- it's, you know, held in the fall and it's the most beautiful -- some of the most beautiful nights in New York we've watched great matches here as the summer is ending.
The good news is also that the US Open is held at a time when you can still get locally grown vegetables shipped in here for people to eat. The US Open is held when locally grown flowers can be brought here to be used decoratively for the event. The US Open is held at a time when people can use public transportation a little more handily. It's not the dead of winter and we're in some indoor stadium at an event.
All of this comes together in a way for us to be able to do these kind of reductions of fuels and materials and so forth that might be a little more challenging if it was at a different time of year or in a different location.
For me, I'm happy to do whatever I can. Whatever small part I give, that's easy for me. I just want to know where's my T-shirts? XL in the dark material. Let's go. (laughter.)
CHRIS WIDMAIER: We'll work on that.

Q. I know NRDC has a major sporting event initiative. How does the US Open compare to some of the other major sporting events you've been trying to green up?
PETER LEHNER: I think every event has its own challenges and its own, as Alec was saying, its own opportunities. So we haven't measured them to try to compare one versus the other but rather take the opportunities that are best in each of the events. What is exciting is that we have had a tremendous response. The US Tennis Association has been terrific. Other leagues have also been terrific.
We've been working closely with the Basketball Association. Major League Baseball and other leagues have been really also very enthusiastic. So what's exciting is this is one of the really a tidal wave of change and that of course is what we need. We need to have a tidal wave of change in our society so we can have a healthy future for our kids.
ALEC BALDWIN: And also to transfer this kind of model to public spaces like airports and parks, fast food corporations, premium coffee distributors, if you will. I don't want to name any names, but a lot of plastic seems to be floating around there from some companies. I don't see why they can't be taught to do things differently, as well.

Q. I want to press you a little bit further. When you were thinking of how you were helping the US Open, how it's a different kind of sporting event than, say, a Super Bowl, which is a one-off, or even Major League Baseball where the stadium gets used maybe four games in a row and then there aren't any games for a while. I'm wondering, what were the unique challenges of this particular sporting event that you had to address?
PETER LEHNER: We were just talking about that beforehand, because you've got this great complex here and it's used very heavily for three weeks and then much less. So the complex itself has also addressed some of the, for example, their energy use and the hallways and in the offices, but with an event like this, there are a lot of opportunities such as the paper use, all the paper, and think of it, the tickets, the daily draw sheets, napkins, all the paper all around the place.
In a couple of years, the US Open has moved from really just any old paper to paper with really significant post-consumer recycled content, which again is just a huge step forward.
So it's these one-offs, because you have an event, again, the food is critical, and as Alec mentioned you have the opportunity -- people come here obviously to watch the tennis, but it's nice to eat, too. So what happens at the food concessionaires, all the utensils now are made out of cornstarch rather than out of petroleum-based plastic. Again, really sends a message not only to all the vendors but the millions of fans who come here.

Q. This type of policy, due to circumstances, can also be taken to airports and other facilities. What I'd like to know is how is the NRDC trailing down these initiatives to the younger kids and schools and sport? How does that raise the need in the kids in the community to understand these values?
PETER LEHNER: We do it because of Alec. NRDC says you can go to our website and get lots of great information, but it's going to be people like Alec, people like Billie Jean King and Venus Williams and the others who have done these PSAs that get people to pay attention. It's really through these wonderful people who have made a name for themselves who people care about who are willing to speak so much.
ALEC BALDWIN: I also think, in addition to that, what you face with these kinds of programs is you face some resistance from the public in the beginning. Smoking was outlawed in this country over the last several years, and there were places where it seems like yesterday you were sitting in restaurants and bars and people smoked, completely legally and completely unselfconsciously, and now that's forbidden. Nearly everywhere you go, that's forbidden. We've adjusted to that and we've accepted that.
I think that people want to participate in these programs, they want guidance, they want Green Initiatives in public spaces like this. They do this stuff at home and they want to know when they go somewhere else, is someone helping them to do it on their behalf?
NRDC and the USTA have decided that on behalf of the people that are fans of tennis, they are going to do it on their behalf here while they're their guests here.

End of FastScripts

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