When AMBSE opened Mercedes-Benz Stadium in 2017, it did so with fan-first pricing for concessions. Two years later, AMBSE made it the first fully cashless venue among major U.S. sports franchises.
Now, the home of the Falcons and Atlanta United is the first large stadium to earn the TRUE (Total Resource Use and Efficiency) Platinum certification for being a zero-waste facility, less than a year after the crosstown Hawks received the designation for State Farm Arena.
Cannon, who was AMBSE’s CEO until his promotion to vice chair in January, detailed how this is now the third instance in which his management team is compiling a best practices playbook to share across the industry.
“What I like about this and why we're doing it, why Arthur has pushed us, is if we only do it, [it’s a] great impact,” Cannon said. “But if we influence a lot of our sports partners -- think baseball, football, college basketball, think of all the arenas in America and how much waste they produce on a regular basis -- if we were to turn that entire industry to zero waste, wow, what an impact we would have. But even more importantly, because sports is so prominent as a platform, they're going to influence their sponsors, other businesses that they touch in their communities.”
Cannon lauded major AMBSE partner Coca-Cola for its collaborative efforts in achieving zero waste, a standard that means more than 90% of all waste created in the venue is diverted from landfills. Mercedes-Benz Stadium was on the verge of hosting the first zero-waste NCAA Men’s Final Four in 2020 before COVID shut it down. (“I tease the team, ‘I appreciate that you all have accomplished zero waste. But this is not the way we wanted to achieve zero waste -- by shuttering our buildings,’” Cannon quipped.)
The next objective has already been identified, along with another partner, Southern Company. “Our next hurdle will be zero emission,” Cannon said, noting that as part of stadium’s LEED Platinum certification, 10% of its energy is renewable via 4,000 solar panels on the roof. UBS Arena was the first to achieve recognition for carbon neutrality, but MBS has quadruple the seating capacity.
Blank’s family foundation recently identified clean energy as one if its main pillars, so its business portfolio will follow suit.
“We are deep in discussions,” Cannon said. “We’ve looked into opportunities from building our own solar farm -- where can we find land and in Georgia, not Atlanta, that will pay into the grid, we'll pull off of that. So what we don't want to do is buy offsets, because that feels like it's great, but it's not a full commitment. So we're investigating costs, alternatives to creating our own access to our own sustainable energy source that we can then [have] a zero-carbon footprint.”
