Nationals Park Falling Behind in Green Rankings

I have to say ... The Green Miles was a little disappointed in this video. I mean, no one loves the Washington Nationals' green diamond more than me ... but this video could've been made the day the park opened four seasons ago. The Nats have seriously upgraded their team since 2008 - why not their green efforts as well?

When Nationals Park opened in 2008, it was the first U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified ballpark in Major League Baseball, achieving the "silver" standard. But since then, the Minnesota Twins have opened Target Field, also LEED silver-certified (and a much better place to watch a game, arguably the best in baseball). And the Pittsburgh Penguins opened a LEED gold-certified arena.

And all of those stadiums have been passed by a college facility. The University of Florida's Heavener Football Complex is LEED platinum-certified, the highest possible rating.

So how can the Nats get back on top?

• Renewable energy. If the Boston Red Sox can put solar panels on Fenway Park, there's no reason why the Nats can't have some as well. Even the Washington Redskins, whose owner is no friend of the environment and who manage to screw up almost everything else, have installed a sizable solar array at FedEx Field.
• Put the players out front. Nationals pitcher Collin Balester is part of Players for the Planet, speaking out on the need for recycling & climate action. Why not include him in these clips along with the front office staff?
• Tear down the awful parking garages. Not only are they eyesores that block views of the Capitol, not only do they sit empty most of the time, but they encourage driving to a park that's next to one Metro stop and a 15 minute walk from several others. Imagine how much revenue the Nats could recapture from The Bullpen across the street by turning the garage space into an inviting area to eat, drink, shop and socialize. Yes, I know DC paid tens of millions of dollars to build the garages. But letting the mistake stand won't get that money back.
• Stop selling ads on everything to polluters. It's not quite in the same league as Pittsburgh's "green" arena selling its naming rights to a polluting coal company. But the Exxon Mobil-sponsored left field wall billboard, Exxon Mobil-sponsored 7th inning stretch, Exxon Mobil-sponsored organic cotton hat, and Exxon Mobil-sponsored stadium replica really distract from the Nats' efforts to show they care about the environment & public health.

Finally, how's this for a headline: Nationals Sign Local Environmental Blogger as Left-Handed Reliever! Think about it, Mike Rizzo.

Note to Self: Do Not Offer Finger to Bird of Prey

I was hanging out in the Red Loft before Tuesday's Nationals-Red Sox game when a friend arrived and said, "Did you see the owl???" At first I thought, "Oh, silly city dweller. So easily amazed by a non-sparrow." Then I looked around the corner and realized it wasn't some little stuffed bird to show off to the tourists.

No, thanks to the Earth Conservation Corps, this was a live Great Horned Owl. A real bad-ass one, too. I was about to do the Colbert with the owl for our picture, then looked down and it was giving my finger the "hold still for just one sec" look. Held my ground just long enough to get a picture in.

NYTimes Covers StrikeOutExxon.org, Charged with Two Errors

Sunday's New York Times covered the group organizing ongoing protests against the Washington Nationals for their major sponsorship deal with ExxonMobil. StrikeOutExxon.org even wonders if the Nats will allow ExxonMobil to purchase naming rights to Nats Park.

The Green Miles is a Nats partial season ticket holder. I'm already wavering about renewing them since the Nats continue to make stupid baseball decisions, like trading Jon Rauch for a Freddie "The Flea" Patek clone and bidding against themselves to wildly overpay Christian Guzman. The only thing that keeps me coming back is a beautiful day at the ballpark (even if my team typically gets killed). But if the Nationals sell the naming rights of our brand-new green diamond to ExxonMobil, I'll dump my tickets that day.

Back to the article. It's a decent summary of the protests, but there are two egregious flaws. Here's the first:

During a nine-game home stand in late June, ExxonMobil worked with the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group, to offer energy-saving tips at the new stadium. [...]

The president of the Alliance to Save Energy, Kateri Callahan, said she knew that working with ExxonMobil “could raise some eyebrows,” but said that the company had been a conscientious partner in her group’s fuel-efficiency campaign.

Makes it sound like the Alliance to Save Energy is some tiny little ragtag outfit taking a big risk with a brand new partnership with ExxonMobil. Except for the nagging little detail that ExxonMobil is a major contributor to the Alliance to Save Energy. Seems like something the NYTimes should've mentioned, don't you think?

In fact, the group's donor list (the Alliance prefers to call them "members") is a virtual who's who of big energy companies and major polluters. The Alliance isn't going out on a limb -- it's paying back one of its major donors by helping them greenwash.

Then there's this:

Mr. Jeffers, however, said ExxonMobil was emphasizing energy efficiency in light of forecasts from the company and other analysts that hydrocarbons will continue to supply about 80 percent of the world’s energy over the next few decades.

Can you believe a reporter for what's supposed to be one of the best newspapers in the country would take ExxonMobil's forecasts as gospel?

Genuine or Greenwashing: Nats Organic Cotton Cap Day

The Chesapeake Climate Action Network just launched a new campaign highlighting ExxonMobil's extensive sponsorship of the Washington Nationals and their new ballpark.

The Green Miles wasn't sure how to react at first. After all, the Nationals have one of the greenest ballparks in the majors. Should being a green business mean you can't make as much money as you can off ads?

Fortunately, the Nationals and ExxonMobil decided to make my decision for me. They're partnering on one of the most blatant examples of greenwashing I've ever seen:

Nats Conversion Day
June 29 vs. Baltimore - 1:35 PM
Bring in any MLB team merchandise and trade it in for a Nationals hat made from organically-grown cotton. One hat per person, while supplies last.
Presented by ExxonMobil

It's recycling old merchandise! And the hats are made with organic cotton! What could be more green than that? Pay no attention to the fact that it's sponsored by one of the least moral corporations in the history of the planet!

And when I say least moral, I'm not just talking about ExxonMobil's ongoing leadership role in denying global warming and blocking climate action. Just check out ExxonMobil's Wikipedia entry. Environmental abuses galore, sure. But also shady foreign business practices. Supporting human rights abuses. A zero score on gay issues from the Human Rights Campaign.

Learn more at StrikeOutExxon.org.

Why Nationals Park Left The Green Miles Warmed and Chilled

I've already blogged about how the new Nationals Park is a green diamond. When I made my first visit last weekend, what I noticed most was how much of an impact the new stadium's green features had on the fan experience.

None.

The green roof, the water filtration system, the drink cups made from corn ... as a fan, I would never have guessed I was in a LEED-certified building.

But one burning question remained. What about the beer?

Last spring, I blogged about how the Washington Nationals struck out my beer craving at RFK Stadium, offering warm beer that was hard to buy in a wasteful process.

So at the beer stand, The Green Miles got all misty-eyed when he saw this:
That monolith is a refrigerator, a quantum leap over RFK's comically deficient ice chests. My beer was almost too cold. I did not complain.

As I finished my Bud Light, I looked for the vaunted recycling bins:

Aluminum on one side, plastic on the other. Heartwarming.

Of course, beyond the bin, there's another huge environmental challenge - the polluted Anacostia River. Think someday we'll have a river walk with bars and restaurants overlooking a clean waterway?

Green Diamonds I: Nats Open MLB's First Green Ballpark

The Green Miles is a bit groggy today, having woken up at 5:45am to watch the Red Sox beat the A's in the TokyoDome as Major League Baseball opened the 2008 season.

As the new season kicks off, I thought I'd take a look at some teams that are reducing their environmental impact without adding significantly to their costs.

I'll start right across the river in Washington, DC, where the Nationals are getting ready to open the first LEED-certified ballpark in the majors. As you can see, it's ready for the first home game on Saturday, an exhibition against the Baltimore Orioles.

Architects say LEED certification added just $2 million to the stadium's costs, a fraction of one percent of the total. Or in baseball terms, less than the cost of a free agent middle reliever. And some of those costs will be quickly recovered. High-efficiency field lighting uses 21% less energy than standard lighting.

What some may see as Nationals Park's design flaw is actually its biggest environmental plus. As these Peeps helpfully demonstrate, it's going to be difficult to drive to Nationals Park and even harder to park there. The vast majority of fans will take public transportation.

More facts snipped from Fast Company magazine:

The 6,317-square-foot green roof over a concession area is planted with about 1,200 drought-resistant sedums. A donation from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation covered the $100,000 cost.

The first-of-its-kind wastewater system uses sand filters calibrated to a ballpark's unique needs -- for instance, it's designed to screen out organic debris such as peanut shells and hot-dog bits. The engineers claim that water that has gone through the system is cleaner than the water in the nearby Anacostia River.

An in-house recycling center is equipped with four 34-cubic-yard dumpster-compactors, big enough to handle the glass, metal, and plastic recyclables generated during one three-day home stand.

For those of us who don't speak horticulturese, sedums basically = hardy shrubs.

Of course, the National Trust for Historic Preservation often makes the case that the greenest building is the one that's already built. Would it have been more environmentally-friendly for the Nats to renovate RFK? While The Green Miles is not a scientist and does not even get to play one on TV, I'll say probably. The material and energy it takes to build a new stadium from scratch probably outweighs the negatives of RFK's non-LEED building and massive surface parking lots. But DC wanted to blow half a billion dollars on a new ballfield, so that's that!

Wednesday - Green Diamonds II: The Monster Gets a Makeover
Thursday - Green Diamonds III: Avast! Pirates Pillage Yer Recyclables