Syngenta, Marriott Golf test new carbon tool

Superintendents at 12 Marriott Golf properties around the globe are testing a new tool from Syngenta that aims to help golf courses improve their environmental performance, most notably by reducing the game's carbon footprints.

The tool, dubbed the Turf Carbon Calculator, was designed to help course managers benchmark their environmental performance and validate the improvements they're making on the golf course, according to a news release from the company, and is part of a joint collaboration between Syngenta and Marriott Golf.

"With Syngenta's source of quality research and knowledge in the turfgrass industry, this collaborative effort provides our superintendents with appropriate tools that enable us to better manage our operations and continue to promote environmental stewardship with Marriott guests and associates around the world," explained Robert Waller, CGCS, the senior director of grounds for Marriott Golf and a 15-year GCSAA member.

One of the superintendents who has been testing the tool is Anthony Williams, CGCS at Stone Mountain Golf Club just outside of Atlanta. The 14-year GCSAA member's environmental track record is well known — he won GCSAA's 2010 President's Award for Environmental Stewardship and was the overall winner of the GCSAA/Golf Digest Environmental Leaders in Golf Awards in 2006 — so his opinions on the tool definitely count for something.

"The tool is very user friendly and provides an 'easy-to-follow/fill-in-the-raw-data" approach to the process," he said. "Once we've entered the necessary water, electricity and other inputs, the tool produces a final carbon footprint number, and we're able to view data and make comparisons from year to year that has been very useful. This device helps us see the course's strengths and weaknesses and how our decisions influence the environment.

"To me, it's the transparency of how our turf management choices impact environmental sustainability that makes this tool so powerful. It puts Stone Mountain's environmental efforts in a simple format that offers a unique bird's eye view of the operation."

Scott Cole, Syngenta's golf market manager, describes the company's interest in the tool by saying, "For Syngenta, sustainability in golf means preserving the long-term viability of the golf course industry through the efficient and proactive management of inputs that maximize environmental benefits and retain profitability of courses. The tool represents a significant step in the work Syngenta is doing to develop practical sustainability solutions that can be implemented by our customers."

If these early returns are any indication, the Turf Carbon Calculator certainly seems to be a worthy companion to the tools available through Golf's Drive Toward Sustainability from The Environmental Institute for Golf, Audubon International and others. That's good news for superintendents who have already recognized environmental stewardship as an important part of their jobs, like Williams, and the countless others who I believe will be coming to the same conclusion in the coming years.