NHL Rinks go for LEED Green Building certifications

This week, an article on NHL.com announced that Philips Arena, home to the Atlanta Thrashers and NBA Atlanta Hawks has achieved the most prominent green building certification in North America: LEED for Existing Building: Operations and Maintenance (LEED-EB: O&M) certification.  This is the first Arena in the US to have achieved LEED!  There are lots of LEED projects out there, but to get LEED for Arenas are not easy!  Basically, in order to get LEED, the project needs to get as many “environment points” as possible.  The more the project gets, the higher the LEED certification the project can get (Certified, Silver, Gold, Platinum).  And these environmental points were originally developed for office buildings, therefore not exactly suitable for arenas.  What is more impressive for the Philips Arena is that it got LEED EB (as in exiting building), which has always been difficult/expensive to get.  Just imagine retrofitting your home to be more energy efficient - it’s harder than building a new one with “green” in mind!  I’d like to know some more details about this project, and will update when I find some.

How about some other LEED arena projects?

• K-Rock Centre in Kingston, Ontario - this is an arena for the Kingston Frontenacs of the  Ontario Hockey League, part of the major junior league in Canada.  It is built to LEED Silver standard and is in the process of getting LEED certification.  I actually ran a little tour on this arena when I used to live there - the tour will be offered again in the next GreenUP! on April 19, 2009.  You should go take a look!
• AmericanAirline Arena in Miami - this arena, home for the Miami Heat also god LEED EB:O&M on April 6, 2009, same day as the Philips Arena.
• Penguins’ new arena seeks gold LEED status - still under construction, the Consol Energy Arena is seeking to get LEED gold!  They claim that they’ll be the first arena in US to get LEED NC.

NHLPA carbon neutral challenge - updated

I blogged about the NHLPA carbon neutral challenge a couple weeks ago.  The data I had was for year 2007-2008 and 523 players signed up - including the highest profile ones like Syd the kid and Alex the Great.  Today I came across this TSN article which stated that 420 players are signed up (for 2008-2009?).  The article also answered one of the questions i posted before - how much is their carbon footprint?!

The answer is 10tonnes of Carbon credits!  Does that feel like the right number?  To put that in perspective, here are some stats:

• The average footprint for people in Canada is 20.00 tonnes
• The average for the industrial nations is about 11 tonnes
• The average worldwide carbon footprint is about 4 tonnes
• The worldwide target to combat climate change is 2 tonnes

Of course our footprint is not just about traveling - heating, cooling, electricity, driving, and our buying habits all have carbon emission associated with it.  But you might think that 10 tonnes is not enough for hockey players…

Let’s  put it in perspective of just traveling by air - the carbon emission per km travelled is approximately 200g-CO2-equivalent.  Assume that the Vancouver Canucks travels on average 13 trips per season (3-4 game road trip), and assume that the average trip distance traveled is around 3000km (Vancouver to Toronto is about 3500km).  Using these figures, the distances traveled for a Vancouver Canucks player is 60,000km and the CO2 emission is 14 tonnes!  not that far off the 10tonnes estimated given that the Vancouver Canucks probably travels 30% more than some of the eastern teams!  Anyway, I guess the point is that 10 tonnes is not a bad estimate, even though it might feel otherwise when we find out about our average Canadian carbon footprint!

I also found out that Andrew Ference started this initiative and I even found a blog entry by himself on GreenNexxus!  In Vancouver, Willie Mitchell is our “green” guy as he drives a Prius and apparently walk to work sometimes.  I haven’t seen him on the street but since he lives in Yaletown, i just might have a change.  Here’s an article about Willie and his green habits…

This is the quote from Andrew Ference:

“I’m very proud that we’ve offset more than 4,200 tonnes of carbon emissions this season, which is like taking 840 cars off the road for a year,” Ference said in a release. “But best of all, I’m hearing of more and more players in the dressing rooms talking about ‘going green.”‘

NHLPA carbon neutral challenge

I consider myself a Vancouver Canucks hockey fan.  In fact, although not not expert in NHL, I usually keep an eye on what’s going on.  I just discovered the NHLPA Carbon Neutral Challenge that initiated April 2009.  I honestly have NOT heard of it, ever!  I did stop watching hockey because Canucks didn’t make the playoffs, but I thought I might learn about the challenge as 523 players have signed up!  For a 23-men roster for 30 teams in NHL, that works out to be 76% of the rosters in NHL have signed up for the challenge!  You think there should be a bit more PR….  or maybe there was, i just completely missed it.  Actually all high profile players you can think of are on the list!

The process is quite simple.  You sign up, you calculate your personnel carbon footprint from designated websites, and then you buy “good” carbon credits to offset the carbon footprint…   Unfortunately, in addition to minimal PR, it also feels like that players just pay their way to carbon neutrality because caring for the environment just seems like a fad!  I want to know:

• what’s the carbon footprint of a Canuck who travels more than an Islander?
• what’s the carbon footprint of a NHL hockey player comparing to you and I?
• did they calculate their own carbon footprint?
• what’s going on in 2009?

If you know anything.. let me know…