GreenSportsBlog’s occasional series, “Green-Sports Corporate All Stars” highlights companies that are taking taking the lead at the intersection of Green + Sports. The first centered on adidas and Patagonia.

Today’s second installment features energy efficiency leader Johnson Controls partnering with the Pro Football Hall of Fame (PFHOF) as it expands from its current museum and football stadium footprint into a never-seen-before “football village,” and Aquafil, the Italian company that manufactures ECONYL®, a 100 percent regenerated yarn used in swimsuits and athletic wear.

JOHNSON CONTROLS HELPS GREEN NEW PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME VILLAGE GREEN

When Pro Football Hall of Fame President David Baker and Stu Lichter, President and Chairman of the Board of Industrial Realty Group, began formulating plans to turn the Canton, OH based museum and football stadium into a village that will include a hotel, retail, medical center, and much more, Johnson Controls was a logical energy efficiency partner. The Milwaukee-based company:

• Is a global leader in intelligent building design, efficient energy solutions, integrated infrastructure and next generation transportation systems
• Has significant experience working on high profile, energy efficiency projects, such as the Empire State Building’s massive retrofit that resulted in a 38 percent energy usage reduction.
• Has worked with the Hall of Fame for many years.

“When the Hall of Fame undertook its last major renovation in 2010, we were hired to do the environmental systems work,” said Kim Metcalf-Kupres, Johnson Controls’ Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, “In addition to energy efficiency advances, part of our mission-critical work helped to protect the archives and artifacts through humidity controls and temperature monitoring. As big as that project was, the Hall of Fame Village is a much bigger undertaking.”

The $600 million, 9-component^ Village project, currently in the design and strategy phases, is set become the world’s first-ever sports and entertainment “smart city.” Johnson Controls is providing its building management systems, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment, fire and security systems and other technologies. The result will be significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and energy efficiency improvements. LEED certification will be sought—the level it will achieve is not yet known.

Johnson Controls, while primarily a B-to-B brand, understands the hold the NFL and the Pro Football Hall of Fame have on the American people. Thus it is not only helping to green and provide state of the art technology to the Hall of Fame Village, it is also putting its name on it.

Thus the Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village is the company’s first foray into title sponsorship and “will be a powerful marketing and business building for us as it showcases the benefits of a smart, connected, energy efficient, sustainable village for fans, customers and prospective customers.” said Ms. Metcalf-Kupres. “We want our name to be more known, more visible to consumers as the market for smart, efficient buildings grows. And as that happens, our ability to help our customers lead on sustainability, efficiency and climate change will also grow.”

Artist’s rendering of the Johnson Controls Pro Football Hall of Fame Village (Credit: Pro Football Hall of Fame)

The way Pro Football Hall of Fame President Baker sees it, Johnson Controls’ is an ideal teammate for the Village project: “The Pro Football Hall of Fame stands for excellence—and so does Johnson Controls, with its leadership from energy efficient lighting to shades that keep heat in during the winter and help keep the building cool in the summer and more.”

AQUAFIL’S 100 PERCENT REGENERATED YARNS BECOME ATHLETIC APPAREL WITH ECONYL®

Giulio Bonazzi is a man on a mission.

The Chairman and CEO of Aquafil, manufacturer of yarns for apparel and carpet since opening its doors in 1970, believes humanity has no time to waste as far as making serious reductions in climate change producing carbon emissions is concerned. That is why his company, headquartered in Trento in Northern Italy, has made improving performance on emissions and resource consumption central to its DNA.

Giulio Bonazzi, Chairman and CEO of Aqaufil (Photo credit: Aquafil)

“We are, in effect, a chemical plant, one that is located near Lake Garda, one of Italy’s beautiful lakes, and the source of much of region’s water and energy—over 80 percent of which comes from hydro power. We have always realized that we need to keep the lake, the region and the planet clean and to do so, we have to innovate with sustainability at top of mind.”

Aquafil’s signature climate change fighting innovation is the ECONYL® Regeneration System, launched in 2011. ECONYL® yarn is made from Nylon 6, which, according to Mr. Bonazzi, “has a special characteristic that allows it to be regenerated into raw material through de-polymerization. This means you end up with a 100 percent virgin polymer. Nothing is degraded; all of the characteristics are at 100 percent quality.”

This would be a great story in and of itself, but remember, ECONYL® is a system as well as a yarn product. 

What makes it a system is that the Nylon 6 is produced from 100% regenerated waste materials, such as:

• Pre-Consumer Waste: Scraps generated from the production of Nylon 6.
• Post-Consumer Waste: Fishing nets and fluff (the top part of carpets and rugs)

The ECONYL® yarn is manufactured at a dedicated regeneration plant in Slovenia, and then sold to a wide variety of apparel and carpet makers.

Athletic apparel companies are big consumers of ECONYL®. adidas uses it for its Parley swimwear line which was featured in GreenSportsBlog last month. “Parley” refers to adidas’ partnership with nonprofit Parley for the Oceans, which is dedicated to reducing the massive amounts of plastic waste in the oceans.

Not to be outdone, Speedo sends its post-production scraps to Aquafil, which recovers the Nylon 6 for manufacture into ECONYL®. Even surfing legend Kelly Slater uses ECONYL® in Outerknown, his line of sustainable swimwear and outerwear. And Volcom uses ECONYL® in its new “Simply Solid” women’s swimwear line, launched last November. The tagline? “Caught Up In A Good Thing.”

“Sports and active apparel represents more than 50 percent of our ECONYL® business and the business is growing precisely because of its green properties,” reported Mr. Bonazzi, “And perhaps the most important statistic of all is that ECONYL® yarn has about 80 percent lower global warming potential than standard nylons.”

What about calcio, as soccer is called in Italy, and ECONYL®?

“The clubs in Serie A, the top league in Italy, make their jerseys from polyester, as it is cheaper, at least for now,” acknowledged the Aquafil CEO, “Napoli F.C. is making its jerseys from a polypropylene that is better than polyester for the environment but there is much room for improvement. Before we get to Serie A, we see the skiing and cycling apparel markets as strong opportunities for ECONYL®. Right now, Aquafil is the 10th largest nylon fiber maker in world. We expect to move up, thanks to ECONYL® in the sports and apparel markets and also the carpet market, where we are a big player.”

^ The Hall of Fame Village’s 9 components are: Hall of Fame Museum, Tom Benson Stadium (where the annual Hall of Fame Game will be played), 4 Star hotel and Conference Center, Main Street Hall of Fame Village and Retail, Center for Excellence, Performance Center (another football stadium plus basketball arena), Legends Landing (independent and assisted living for Hall of Famers and other NFL legends), National Football & Youth Sports Complex, and the Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Experience.

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