This article says that more than 30 billion people — out of a world population of 6.6 billion — are expected to tune into the upcoming soccer football World Cup. So that just goes to show you how popular soccer football is.

The event kicks off (ha!) on Friday in Germany and my fiancé would be happy to tell you when all the games are being played, which team is playing which, what their chances are of moving to the next round, what color each team wears, the name of every player on every team, and precisely how to work, eat, sleep, plan a wedding, and watch six hours of soccer football every day for over a month. Me — all I’ve got is the green angle.

Says the World Cup environmentalness website:

Reader support helps sustain our work. Donate today to keep our climate news free. All donations DOUBLED!

Green GoalTM gives environmental protection a project status for the FIFA World Cup for the first time in the history of football.

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.

To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. Here's How

The tournament will be climate neutral and aim to meet environmental protection targets in the areas of abfall, verkehr, energie, and wasser. (Sprechen Sie Deutsch? I don’t, I just read the URLs.)

One stadium is mounting solar panels on its roof; the arena in Munich is reducing electricity and heat consumption by about 20 percent. Another initiative aims to persuade half of the 3.2 million spectators to take public transit to the games (and they’d better, because obviously parking is gonna be a bitch).

I’ve got my money on the home team, which I like to call Deutschland. Anybody wanna make a friendly wager? (Pretty sure I’m not allowed to be taking money here on the old Gristmill, so we’ll just bet a virtual high five.)

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.

To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. Here's How