Philips Arena

Southface conducted a LEED concepts workshop to set environmental goals and discuss strategies to achieve those goals. Southface was the LEED Administrator and actively worked with Atlanta Spirit throughout the LEED certification process. Southface also conducted the energy audit to assess the building’s energy performance and look for low and no-cost ways to reduce energy use.

 

Environmental Strategies Implemented

Site:

• Environmentally sensitive building exterior, hardscape management, pest management, erosion control and landscape management plans reduce impacts on the environment.

• About 25% of workers use alternative transportation to commute.

Water efficiency:

• Southface created a water management plan for the cooling towers and installed conductivity meters on the cooling towers to manage bleed-off rates and save water.

Energy efficiency:

• The building underwent an energy audit to find energy performance opportunities.

• The building perform 25% more efficiently than other buildings of its type.

• Reported greenhouse gas emissions.

Materials:

• An Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Policy encourages the purchase of eco-friendly products.

• The Solid Waste Management Policy includes extensive recycling.

• Sustainable purchases were documented for:

  • 75% of ongoing consumables,

  • 69% of cleaning products,

  • 100% of new furniture,

  • 100% of new facility additions,

• TVs were repaired to divert them from the landfill.

• 99% of waste from facility additions was reused.

Indoor environmental quality:

• A high performance green cleaning program reduces the exposure of maintenance staff, building occupants and the environment to harmful chemicals.

Results

As a result of the sustainability efforts of Philips Arena, this iconic facility is a model to all sporting facilities as the first sports arena to attain LEED certification.