US venues playing by sustainability rulebook

Article posted by Coliseum, June 23^rd, 2023

Image: Climate Pledge Arena, Sea Cow, CC BY-SA 4.0

Professional sports are inherently a copycat industry. From Major League Baseball’s (MLB’s) Moneyball revolution to the National Basketball Association’s (NBA’s) renewed focus on the three-point shooting driven by the Golden State Warriors and its player Steph Curry, in-season and championship success quickly becomes a blueprint for the other teams to follow.

‘CNBC’ stated that another recent trend spreading across sports has many hoping it will also follow suit: Arenas and stadiums not only adopting sustainable and environmentally friendly practises, but putting those efforts front and center for fans, players, musicians, and anyone else who enters the building.

New York (US)-based the Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization. One of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, the MLB comprises 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada.

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The Moneyball strategy is based on the idea that baseball can be narrowed down to data that supports profit. The Moneyball strategy, argues that baseball is a business and teams can be successful with good investments.

New York (US)-based the National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams. It is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and is considered the premier professional basketball league in the world.

‘CNBC’ further stated that much like the broader world of commercial real estate, arenas and stadiums have been slowly adopting sustainable practices over the last few decades, from recycling programs to energy efficiency efforts. But several major sports facilities across the United States have taken this to another level in recent years, and their operators and owners hope that the success they’ve seen across multiple fronts creates real momentum around the idea of environmentally friendly stadiums.

The 71,000-capacity Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, home of both the National Football League’s (NFL’s) Atlanta Falcons and the Major League Soccer’s (MLS’s) Atlanta United, became the first pro sports venue in the United States to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum Certification in 2017.

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a Green building certification program used worldwide.

The LEED Platinum certification allows for independent, third-party certification that a new building implements measurable, positive steps toward protecting and improving human and environmental health.

The 18,422-capacity Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona, home of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA’s) Phoenix Mercury, works directly with the materials science company that holds its naming rights to eliminate single-use plastic from the arena and on other sustainable practises.

‘CNBC’ further stated that the bar across sports was set even higher in 2021 when the 18,300-capacity Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle opened and not only became the first net zero certified arena in the world but served as a call-to-action for Amazon’s push for companies globally to be net zero carbon by 2040.

Carbon neutrality is a state of net zero carbon dioxide emissions. This can be achieved by reducing emissions, most of which come from the burning of fossil fuels, and by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Commented Chris Granger, head of OVG360, a management company that works with more than 300 venues across the world ranging from arenas and stadiums to amphitheaters and performing arts centers, “Venue operators are relatively quickly understanding their opportunities and their responsibilities as it related to operating more sustainably. Sports teams and venues have a platform on the topic of social change, and we have the ability to shine a light on issues that matter in a way that many businesses don’t. I think our venue operators are saying ‘Okay, we get it. Now what do we do about it?’”

The trend in sports is not dissimilar to what is being seen across other industries: A desire from businesses to be better stewards in their community and connect with the growing number of people putting an increased emphasis on environmentally friendly actions, coupled with the fact that many of these measures also have a solid business case attached to them.

When work to renovate the KeyArena (now the Climate Pledge Arena) in Seattle began, there were many discussions on how to introduce sustainability measures not only for construction goals but also operational goals, said the NHL team Seattle Kraken and Climate Pledge Arena Senior Vice-President of Sustainability and Transportation Rob Johnson.

That quickly evolved into making an arena that could be a “beacon of a sustainability district”, Johnson said, which helped attract the attention of Amazon, who in 2019 co-founded the Climate Pledge initiative to have companies, organizations and partners work together to address the climate crisis and solve the challenges around decarbonizing.

That led to what has become the Climate Pledge Arena. Its efforts include being zero-waste by using compostable containers and reducing single-use plastic use, conserving water by retaining rainwater for reuse and not using fossil fuels in the arena for daily use – including electric-powered Zambonis for Kraken games.

The Zamboni is a mechanical ice resurfacer. It works by scraping the ice surface and collecting the snow (which is later discarded). Next, it “cleans” the ice, by putting down water which flushes the grooves deep in the ice, loosening any dirt or debris.

Zero-waste Goal

The Mercedes-Benz Stadium has been on its own sustainability path since it opened in 2017, with operator Arthur Blank pushing his AMB Sports and Entertainment Group (AMBSE) executives to set a higher standard for an environmentally friendly stadium.

The stadium opened as the first LEED Platinum stadium in the United States but “that was just the start”, said Steve Cannon, Vice- Chairman of AMBSE.

Added Cannon, “Anyone can make that incremental investment into your building, but if operationally you don’t perform in a manner that’s consistent with that, you’re leaving something on the table.”

That has led to a focus on getting to zero-waste status, which the stadium first achieved in 2020 for an Atlanta United match, Cannon said. After an investment of about $1 million to retrofit the building and put in other measures to achieve that zero-waste consistently, the stadium has now reached that goal.

In its 2022 fiscal year, there were more than four million pounds of waste at the stadium, and more than 91 percent of that was diverted away from landfills, according to Andrew Bohenko, Mercedes-Benz Stadium Sustainability Coordinator.

That required a significant amount of education for employees and fans, and also working with vendors and other departments within the company to ensure that “there was buy-in across all our of two-million-square-foot footprint”, Bohenko said.

Ultimately, the stadium saw more than 95 percent compliance from fans putting trash in the right receptacles, and it projects a $400,000 yearly return on its initial investment while spending about 13 cents per guest for its overall zero-waste efforts right now. The AMBSE has even created a “playbook” for other stadium operators to follow if they also want to get to zero waste.

Added Cannon, “Everyone understands that the environment is our number one global challenge. It has reached a level of critical mass where people have moved past greenwashing, and they’re making substantive changes to their business practises. The platform that sports represent has a disproportionate impact on our society at large, so if you think about the aggregated impact of all ballparks and stadiums across America diverting waste from landfills that’s huge, but where it becomes even more important is the power of the platform to influence other businesses – then you start to really make meaningful change.”

Johnson said Seattle’s zero-waste push has led to savings as well, as composting costs less than sending garbage to a landfill.

Reach-out

Another impactful revenue opportunity related to the arena’s sustainability push, according to Johnson, is reaching new fans -“Folks under 40, who we are all cultivating as critically important fans to our success in the future, identify the environment as one of their top three global concerns. So, we believe it’s not just the right thing for us to do for the planet, but we also think that we’re speaking to a demographic that is key to the future of the success of our industry.”

Kristen Fulmer, Senior Director of Sustainability at OVG360 parent company Oak View Group, said while it’s clear that “sustainability can be a good business”, there still can be confusion about what that really means.

Added Fulmer, “Sustainability is kind of noisy. Environment, social, and governance (ESG) is a catchphrase that everyone knows but doesn’t quite know the meaning of, so there are some things that we can demystify about it. We want to help them figure out what are things that are relevant to me, my specific building, my specific market, my community, my employees, so that they can hone in on something that’s really unique.”

The OVG Oak View Group, LLC is an American Global Advisory, Development and Investment Company for Sports and Live Entertainment industries. Based in Los Angeles, it was formed on November 16th, 2015 by Tim Leiweke and his business partner, Irving Azoff. Leiweke is the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Granger pointed to efforts like the NBA team Sacramento Kings home stadium – the 17,608-capacity Golden 1 Center where the arena is powered by 100 percent renewable and solar energy, and Toronto’s (Canada) 19,800-capacity Scotiabank Arena, where a deep-lake water cooling system utilizing nearby Lake Ontario helps keep the building cool and eliminates the need for air conditioning compressors.

Making sustainability a key part of any construction or building project is also becoming table stakes for bonds, loans and other financial measurements, both Granger and Fulmer noted, a critical factor for many of the aging arenas and stadiums across the United States likely due for upgrades or full replacements in the coming decade.

It also matters more for artistes and athletes. Granger said there are musicians asking for vegan or plant-based food options or asking buildings to let fans bring reusable water bottles to reduce the impact of single-use plastics.

Johnson said that when the American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish came to Seattle to perform in 2022, her tour rider required the arena to not use single-use plastics for at least the night that she was to perform – “That was a big inspiration for us. If Billie Eilish can come through your building and you’ll move to no single-use plastics for one night, why couldn’t you do it for the other 364 nights?”

Ahead of the tour date, Eilish’s mother and sustainability advocate Maggie Baird asked to tour the arena, telling Johnson and Seattle’s team that they “operationalized” the rider. Seattle has given tours to numerous artistes, teams, athletes, and other organizations wanting to see more of the building’s practises in action.

Concluded Fulmer, “All of these factors are pointing towards a future where sports and sustainability are more intertwined. In the sustainability world we often say that imperfection gets in the way and creates inaction, and I think people are always really scared to not quite be perfect. In the sports world of course we all want to be perfect or always win. Here, small wins are really important, and they’re leading to bigger wins.”

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