Monday, April 6, 2009

Philips Arena Goes Green, or It's a Nice Feeling to be Proud of Your City-State


Philips Arena, it turns out, is the first NHL or NBA arena to be meet the requirements for Green-ness. Or more exactly, it's met the standards of "green building operating standards and performance measures."

Philips Arena has taken a leadership role in promoting sustainability in Atlanta, and has set a new green standard nationally for arena operations and design. Its achievement represents a challenge to other venues to minimize their environmental impacts while enhancing their ability to use energy and water efficiently, to recycle, and to educate their audiences on the benefits of these actions.

"Congratulations to the Atlanta Thrashers and the entire Atlanta Spirit Organization for achieving Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification of Philips Arena as the first green sports arena in the United States," said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. "This accomplishment is even more notable considering that Philips Arena has achieved this certification as an existing facility. The Thrashers are helping to set the standard for the NHL in our League-wide commitment to meet green operating standards and performance measures through our Keep the Ice from Melting initiative."


Quite an achievement, in my opinion. As the article says, it's even more impressive that Philips has achieved this level of ecological soundness as a pre-existing building and not as a brand new one. Credit where credit is due: Good work, ATL Spirit.

5 comments:

FrenchCatalogues said...

It is actually something. It is something to be proud of. Hockey writers will find some way to make fun of us though like lack of carbon dioxide because open seats via puck daddy. Oh well. No good deed goes unpunished or whatever.

Wayne from AL said...

Big whoop.

Big Shooter said...

I agree. Nice move, even if I did chuckle at the guy at the Town Hall.

We all need to be green if we can...

Mortimer Peacock said...

As Kermit the Frog once said...

Anonymous said...

do you know who the consultant was for the LEED certification?