With the NFL season underway and rapidly heating up, articles surrounding NFL-related topics are obviously trending. Well, that got me to thinking, and then to reading, and now to sharing what I’ve learned…
credit: www.sportslogos.net
As a New York Giants fan myself, I find it painful to share what I am about to, but since this blog is dedicated to the sharing of knowledge surrounding all things green, I find I have a duty to my audience. The Philadelphia Eagles are leading the charge for greener football organizations, and more teams should be like them. There! I said it, and I refuse to ever repeat myself. Nonetheless, the sustainability enhancements that the Eagles’ decision-makers have made should be admirable to any football fan, regardless of team colors.
On the roof areas of the stadium and parking lot at Philly‘s Lincoln Financial Field, over 11,000 solar panels work each day to generate energy for the stadium. And if that’s not good enough for you, rest assured that those solar panels work in partnership with the 14 wind turbines on the top of stadium, which continuously help to pump energy back into the area’s power grid, even when the sun goes down. So, how big of an impact could these small touches have on such a huge venue? Factually, their impact is sufficient enough to propel Lincoln Financial Field to its current standing as the only carbon-neutral, off-the-grid stadium in the country.
This is obviously no small feat, but one we should look forward to other teams replicating soon. As awareness continues to grow, the responsibility to implement change is increasingly taken by the professional sports organizations of today’s world. With only three years under its belt, the Green Sports Alliance meets every year in NYC, providing one such outlet by which the sports industry’s leaders can gather for the collective exploration of options to better current practices and the furthered progression of green programs. More and more changes are being seen as a result of new idea generation and new standards for comparable venues, and hopefully we will soon reach the point in time where the nature of these eco-friendly practices moves from future conception to modern convention. Food for thought.
For fellow NY Giants fans, and even those of the NY Jets, here is some [older] information I dug up on our venue, MetLife Stadium.