The fourth annual 2008 Philadelphia Triathlon took place in Fairmount Park, one of the largest urban parks in America, located in the heart of the city. It comprised a full weekend of racing, including the sprint distance triathlon and kids duathlon on Saturday and an Olympic distance triathlon on Sunday morning, which also served as the USA Triathlon mid-Atlantic Regional Championship.

Race operations occupied two locations - the expo near Memorial Hall up from the river, and the transition area, start/finish line, food, and medical tents on the banks of the Schuykill River. All three races were looped courses, starting and finishing in the transition area on the banks of the river. The weekend races involved about 4,000 athletes all told, and conditions were good for racing: beautiful, clear weather dominated.

Waste
The Philadelphia Triathlon relied on volunteers from the Recycling Alliance, Fairmount Park staff, and the City of Philadelphia to provide recycling station materials (bins and bags), process the waste at the station during the event, and haul the recycling and landfill waste after the race. There was no composting.

The race recycled cardboard (separately) and comingled plastic, glass, tin and aluminum. The recycling stations were distributed around the transition and expo areas and included clearly marked blue recycling containers with clear plastic bags alongside cardboard boxes with black bags for trash. There was no post-disposal sorting of recycling.

During the race, Recycling Alliance volunteers processed the bags when full and place them curbside for the Philadelphia municipal waste management workers to pick up at the end of the day. The total tonnage of recycling collected, according to triathlon staff, was 1,620 pounds. The total weight of landfill waste was not provided.

Portable toilets were provided by Royal Flush and used a traditional blue formaldehyde deodorizer.

Climate
There was minimal effort to reduce or offset carbon emissions produced by the race. The image that best captures the race's carbon footprint might be the acres and acres of park land consumed by parked cars. Walking the lots, one could see license plates from the majority of Atlantic seacoast states. The Philadelphia Triathlon did not promote carpooling nor promote the use of public transportation in any literature provided to the athletes or on the website. There are public bus stops close to the race site, but race organizers did not include these on any maps provided to athletes.

The race did provide homestay accommodations for about 30 elite athletes, which was down from the number of homestays in 2007, according to the race organizer.

No complimentary shuttle bus service was provided by the sponsor hotel to the race.

All the served food was provided by local Philadelphia-based vendors including pizza, sandwiches, and fruit. However, no documentation was provided to indicate if the ingredients were sourced within 250 miles of the race.

The water sponsor was Deer Park, a Nestle company, which provided disposable (recyclable) individual plastic bottles to runners at the finish. Deer Park claims the bottles use less plastic than the typical disposable water bottle. The source of the water was not provided by the company.

Materials
The main component of the Philadelphia Triathlon's environmental initiative, with regards to equipment and materials, was the rental and sharing of a major event structures. This included the tents, chairs, finish-line structures, bike racks, and power sources (traditional diesel generators). The finish line structure and barriers are shared with the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge.

Composting did not take place, so the food service materials were not compostable. Most of the food waste and food service materials went to the landfill.

Paper brochures and materials produced by race organizers were minimal, consisting of one print run of about 5,000 brochures. No documentation was provided to show that these were printed on recycled paper or used water-based inks. There were no printing standards set for sponsors or vendors or any limitations placed on the inclusion of printed matter in the registration package.

Community and Outreach
The Philadelphia Triathlon raises funds for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and the race supports the Leukemia Society's Team in Training athlete fundraising activities. In addition, the title sponsor of the race, Philadelphia Insurance, separately donates money to the YMCA and other charitable organizations, including Back on My Feet, an organization that provides services for the homeless. These non-profit charities were provided a free booth space in the expo tent.

Documentation of total funds donated to CHOP was not provided. However, the race organizer estimates that "the race and its athletes" raise over $1 million for charity.

Health Promotion
The Philadelphia Triathlon and its partners promoted the value of health and exercise for kids as well as for the local minority, disabled, and underserved members of the community.

Saturday afternoon, four kid's fun runs were held for ages 1-14, as well as two waves of a kid's duathlon for ages 7-10 and 11-14. Both the sprint and olympic-distance adult races included junior age group of 15-19.

One race sponsor, Cadence Cycling, provided $10,000 through its foundation to the local minority community for the purchase of bikes for local teens. Cadence also provided training and race day support for the teens. The kid's duathlon on Saturday afternoon included about a dozen of these Cadence athletes.

Lastly, the Philadelphia Triathlon and its title sponsor support the Challenged Athlete Foundation (CAF) program, although there is no mention of CAF on the race website. There were a number of CAF athletes competing in the race.