SUSTAINABILITY PROGRAMS

 A priority of Melissa’s Road Race is to implement the world-leading programs that the Banff Marathon currently utilizes to be the “Greenest Marathon on the Planet”.  With the same team that operates the Banff Marathon now running the Melissa’s Road Race, this is a chance to bring some of the best practices over to Melissa’s.  The strategy is to calculate and understand the environmental footprint and then reduce where we can and mitigate where we can’t.  

Melissa’s again included a number of programs that set it apart from most sporting events. 

Our efforts were rewarded and the 2022 Melissa's Road Race reached 100%!

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The sustainability programs include:

• Toward Zero Waste (TZW) – to lower the amount of waste and divert as much as possible from landfill.  The Banff Marathon achieved an astonishing 100%

• Melissa’s will eliminate the use of 10,000 single serve plastic water bottles that have been traditionally used in the event 

• Elimination of plastic participant bags by adding the electronic Virtual Event Bag

• Sustainability Education and Awareness to Participants, Suppliers, Sponsors and others by education, electronic and other. The best example we can give of this is at every TZW station we encourage the runners and guests to self sort the waste into 5 to 7 different bags. While this process is happening we discuss where each stream of waste ends up and how it is managed.  

• Adding bio-digestible cups that are corn based and degrade very quickly back in to the earth is an example of how easy it is to make a change.

• Encouraging participants and volunteers to bring their own water bottles

• Encouraging athletes to transit, carpool, bike and run to the event

• And more!

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These efforts are led by the Melissa’s Organizers in partnership with SustainDriven and only can truly be implemented by you!