By With pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training this week, it’s fitting that we lead off our GSB News & Notes column with a baseball story: Oracle Park (formerly AT&T Park), the home of the San Francisco Giants, just became the first LEED Platinum venue in MLB.
Elsewhere, an iconic Dutch speed skating race is moved to Austria because of the effects of climate change. And Nike continues to push on the sustainability front, pledging to generate all of its energy for its European operations from renewable sources
SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS BALLPARK BECOMES FIRST MLB VENUE TO EARN LEED PLATINUM CERTIFICATION
Oracle Park, formerly AT&T Park and home of the San Francisco Giants since 2000, is one of the best places to watch baseball in the major leagues¹. With McCovey Cove in San Francisco Bay beyond the right field bleachers and the Oakland Bay Bridge off in the distance, the vistas and atmosphere are sublime. Oh yeah, and the Gilroy Garlic Fries are simply beyond.
Oracle Park’s famous and delicious Gilroy Garlic Fries (Photo credit: Wally Gobetz/Flickr)
Less obvious to the senses — aside from the solar panels outside the right field wall — are the ballpark’s many green features. Hopefully that will begin to change as Oracle Park recently became the first venue in the big leagues to receive LEED Platinum Certification, the highest possible designation from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). It had earned LEED Gold status in 2015.
Solar panels outside Oracle Park’s right field stands, overlooking McCovey Cove in San Francisco Bay (Photo credit: San Francisco Giants)
Moving up from LEED Gold to Platinum for existing buildings is not easy. The structure must be best-in-class in every category imaginable, including water efficiency; energy and atmosphere; materials and resources; indoor environmental quality and innovation in design. Able Services (building maintenance) and Goby (data analytics) were key players in helping Oracle Park make the grade. Greening initiatives included:
- Demonstrating a more than 75 percent reduction in conventional commuting trips for employees;
- Offsetting 50 percent of its energy use through renewable energy credits;
- Diverting more than 94 percent of waste from landfill through an aggressive recycling and composting program;
- Instituting water-efficient landscaping – resulting in a more than 50 percent reduction in water usage from improved irrigation technology systems;
- Installing LED Field Lights for over 55 percent energy reduction in field lighting.
“For years, the San Francisco Giants have been steadfast in their pursuit of a sustainable environment at Oracle Park,” said Paul Hanlon, Major League Baseball’s Senior Director of Ballpark Operations and Sustainability. “Through their extensive recycling and environmental efforts, which includes consistently recording waste diversion numbers of 94 percent and greater since 2012, the Giants have achieved the impressive feat of having Oracle Park receive the first LEED Platinum Certification among MLB ballparks, and thus continuing to be a leader throughout all of sports. We commend their efforts, and look forward to their continued growth.”
“We have been committed since opening this park 19 years ago to making it the most sustainable and greenest ballpark in the country,” added Jorge Costa, Giants’ Senior Vice President of Operations and Facilities for Oracle Park. “From the time we opened our gates, we have been working to achieve LEED silver, gold and now platinum certification. We will continue to refine and reevaluate our sustainability and efficiency practices to remain an environmental leader in the operation of Oracle Park,”
CLIMATE CHANGE FORCES MARATHON SPEEDSKATING EVENT TO MOVE FROM NETHERLANDS TO AUSTRIA
After soccer, speedskating is arguably the most popular sport in the Netherlands. And the tradition of speedskating outdoors on natural ice can be considered the Dutch equivalent of apple pie in the U.S.
So what to do when climate change results in winters so warm that the Dutch waterways don’t freeze consistently enough to make speedskating possible?
According to “Racing the Clock, and Climate Change,” a piece by Andrew Keh in the February 7 issue of The New York Times, the Dutch have adjusted to the new reality by moving the Elfstedentocht, one of Netherlands’ most iconic speedskating events — to Austria of all places.
Per Keh, the Elfstedentocht, is “a one-day, long-distance speedskating tour through 11 cities of the Friesland province. [It] has been held casually since the late 1700s and more officially since 1909…Covering a continuous route of about 200 kilometers — about 124 miles — the Elfstedentocht takes place only when the lakes and canals of Friesland develop 15 centimeters (almost six inches) or more of ice…That was once a relatively common phenomenon; lately, it has been exceedingly rare. From its [modern] inception in 1909 to 1963, the Elfstedentocht was held 12 times. Since then, there have been three, most recently in 1997.”
The last Elfstedentocht, the one-day distance race through 11 Dutch cities, was held in 1997. (Photo Credit: Dimitri Georganas/Associated Press)
Some wonder if it will ever be held there again. “The chances of an 11 Cities Tour decrease every year because of global warming,” Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, climate researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, told Keh. “That should be a good incentive for the Dutch to do something about it.”
The Dutch have long led the way on renewables and energy efficiency in an effort to reverse the effects of climate change. But because the Netherlands is both low lying and exposed to the see, its people have also needed to show the way on climate adaptation. That goes for speedskating, so the Dutch figured out a work-around for the Elfstedentocht, which translates to “11 cities tour”.
“Every winter, close to 6,000 people from the Netherlands make a pilgrimage to Weissensee, Austria (population 753),” wrote Keh. “Climate migrants of the sports world, they seek the cold and the ice of this town’s enormous, asparagus-shaped lake. Known as the Alternative Elfstedentocht, the relocated race has been embraced by the Dutch, [since it launched in 1989], as the chance to skate the same, staggering 200-kilometer distance (roughly the driving distance between Los Angeles and San Diego) their ancestors did.”
The key difference, aside from location between the original and the Alternative Elfstedentocht, is that the latter snakes 16 times through a 12.5 kilometer course laid out on the lake in Weissensee, rather than running through 11 towns.
The Alternative Elfstedentocht snakes, serpentine-style, on a lake in Weissensee, Austria (Photo credit: Pete Kiehart, The New York Times)
And while the thousands of skaters who trek to Austria are appreciative that the Alternative Elfstedentocht exists and of their hosts’ hospitality, most hope to be able participate in the original at least one more time.
Erben Wennemars, 43, and a professional speedskater, embodies that spirit.
“I’m an eight-time world champion, I won two Olympic medals, but I would throw it all away for the Elfstedentocht,” Wennemars told Keh. “There are a lot of people who have gold medals. But if you win the Elfstedentocht, you’ll be known for the rest of your life.”
NIKE PARTNERS WITH IBERDROLA TO REACH 100 PERCENT RENEWABLE ENERGY GOAL FOR ITS EUROPEAN OPERATIONS
Nike Just Did It.
“It”, in this case, refers to the company’s recent partnership with Iberdrola, a clean energy producer based in Spain. The goal is to accelerate Nike’s progress on sourcing 100 percent of its energy from renewables for its European operations.
According Nike’s Chief Sustainability Officer Noel Kinder, the new Nike-Iberdrola team “catapult[s] us ahead of the timeline that we outlined three years ago when we joined [The Climate Group’s] RE100, a coalition of businesses pledging to source 100 percent renewable energy across all operations.”
Noel Kinder, Nike’s Chief Sustainability Officer (Photo credit: Nike)
Iberdrola looks to be an ideal partner for Nike.
The only European utility to be part of Dow Jones Sustainability Index since its inception in 2000 certainly talks the clean energy talk. On the hope page of its website, above the fold: “we are committed to a sustainable, safe and competitive business model which replaces polluting sources of energy with clean ones and intensifies the decarbonization and electrification required worldwide.” And it is putting its money where its mouth is, investing more than €32 billion by 2022 in the electrification of the economy.
¹ In order, my five top favorites of the 20 or so MLB ballparks I’ve visited are 1. PNC Park (Pittsburgh Pirates), 2. AT&T Park, 3. Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs), 4. Fenway Park (Boston Red Sox), 5. Camden Yards (Baltimore Orioles)
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