Major League Baseball Stadiums Go Green

Ballparks are greening more than the outfield grass, reports E/The Environmental Magazine. Leading examples are cutting energy use, upping recycling efforts and taking the first steps into renewable energy. Even the nation’s oldest, Fenway Park, in Boston, is now one of the city’s 12 greenest buildings.

New construction brings opportunities for energy-efficient field lighting and waterless and low-flow plumbing fixtures, as well as heat-reflective and vegetative roofs. Citi Field, in New York, and Nationals Park, in Washington, DC, are good examples. Renovations, which recur about every decade in a stadium’s existence, also are up for eco-improvements. Remarks John McHale, Major League Baseball’s executive vice president for administration, “I expect the renovation work is going to be done with a much higher consciousness to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification than has ever been the case.”

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