Dave Newport

Hired to launch the University of Florida’s sustainability program in 1999, Dave Newport became the Florida Gators’ first Sustainability Director. He worked in The Swamp to pilot zero-waste football and cemented the first corporate sponsorship of an in-game sustainability activation in 2002.

After accepting the job as Director of the University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Center in 2006, the Buffalos became the nation’s first NCAA Division 1 athletics program to create a comprehensive sustainability program, Ralphie’s Green Stampede. Today, Dave helps the Buffs expand the impact of sports sustainability to motivate fans to advance sustainability in their homes, work and play. 

Dave is also a founder and Chief Sustainability Officer of Phase 3 Sports, a sports sustainability marketing and consulting firm. In that capacity, Dave is aligning sports organizations with corporate partners that share similar sustainability values and business needs. Phase 3 Sports is currently contracted to advance the sustainability goals of the Pac-12 Conference, that features the nation’s first college sports sustainability property (Pac-12 Team Green), first college sports sustainability conference, and the first sports network to feature in-game promotion of Pac-12 campus sustainability efforts on live TV.

Dave also founded and led an award-winning environmental publishing firm, Florida Environments Publishing Inc, for nearly 15 years. Dave holds an AS from Santa Fe College, a BA from Syracuse University, and did his graduate work in Energy Resource Management & Policy at the University of Maryland.

A lifelong sports fan and hockey addict, Dave started working with Brown University’s hockey team at age nine, worked practices and traveled with the team while playing youth league. He played high school hockey and was a starting defenseman and three-sport letterman (hockey, football, and baseball) at Berwick Academy, in South Berwick, Maine.