Green your stadium – behind-the-scenes tour of Air Canada Center

“…reduce our carbon footprint by 30%, utilities by 30%, and waste by 100%.”

 

More details from the Air Canada Center:

The Air Canada Center…has identified three areas where it can most affect its impact on the environment: Energy, Waste and Water.

Energy
Energy is the largest component of MLSE’s footprint. It is a required commodity, but we do not take its management lightly. We endeavour to minimize our environmental impact through:

  • Deep-lake water cooling which eliminates the need for air conditioning compressors
  • Using steam produced centrally instead of using many boilers
  • Lighting controls on office floors to reduce light levels
  • Overnight temperature set back
  • Variable speed drives on pumps and fans
  • Updating fridges to Energy Star
  • Aggressive plans to upgrade lighting throughout the venue and office tower
  • Proactive internal program aimed at reducing electricity usage and plug load in office tower


Waste

Over a one year period, Air Canada Centre holds on average 180 ticketed events with 2.75 million attendees coming through the building. This amount of traffic combined with the amenities of a sports and entertainment facility, produces a large volume of waste.  MLSE is cognizant of its waste and in 2009 alone will be diverting over 500 metric tonnes of organic material from landfills to farms where it is converted into clean soil (compost). We are also recycling 375 metric tonnes of material per year. Some of our successes are:

Water
MLSE is always looking at ways to reduce water usage and to ensure our business does not contaminate our water system. Some of the ways we have done this are:

  • Utilizing environmentally friendly cleaning supplies and chemicals
  • Installing faucet sensors in our washrooms
  • Installing aerators on taps
  • Filtering the water that makes our ice through reverse osmosis, instead of treating it chemically
  • Treating the water in our ice making plant with “”anode technology”” instead of with chemicals

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