What good are international golf course environmental certifications?

I stayed 4 days at an Audubon Certified Palm Springs golf resort. The place had swans, black and white, real pink flamingos and a gaggle of Canada geese swimming and posing in all the artistically produced water hazards. When we got to the 8th hole one day, the course maintenance guys were trying to herd or harrass a large group of birds by dive bombing them with remote control airplanes and a flying boat device. How lovely. How environmentally sensitive.

Because of my experience with zero waste golf, I look around to see how public facilities manage their waste stream. One thing I see in most golf courses is a lack of recycle containers on the course or around the clubhouse or resort. That was the case where I stayed in Palm Springs. While there may have been some seperating going on behind the scenes, there was no opportunity for guests and players to contribute to the effort. The weather every day we were there was over 105 degrees F so everybody in then resort was continually hydrating so we were all producing a lot of drink containers. No place but the trash can to place the empties.

The question I have is, " What good are international golf course environmental certifications such as Audubon or GEO if the course management doesn't make an obvious attempt to live up to the reciprocal responsibilities that come with the certification?". The answer I have is, "These international certifying organizations don't seem to care what is going on at the local level as long as the course continues to pay the money to renew the certificate every few years.

I'm an advocate for golf courses promoting and demonstrating local solutions for global problems. As an example, if we want to reduce greenhouse gasses in the global atmosphere, we need to reduce the potentials for harmful gasses to be released into the atmosphere. That's something that has to be done on a local, individual level. No employee from the international certifying organization is going to fly out to sort recyclables out of the dumpster because there was no recycle container for customers to place their empties.

I doubt that international environmental certification help market a course's reputation for environmental sensitivity. I suspect that most golfers don't even think about a courses environmental practices. Every golfer I talked to during the four days I spent in Palm Springs was talking about going on line to shop for the best daily greens fee deals. I'm sure I'd  have a lot more readers if I wrote a blog about where to get the cheapest golf deals.