Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce isn’t the only interesting news about this Sunday’s Super Bowl… Did you know the Super Bowl consumes enough electricity to power the average US home for 1400 years! 

‍

Many are asking what can be done to make the big game more sustainable and used as a test case for new climate tech. For example, this year NFL Green is running 14 community projects around Las Vegas and is increasing sustainable and circular solutions at the stadium. The league also buys renewable energy credits to offset the energy required for the entire season! 

‍

While the superbowl brings hyper attention to the stadium, this is part of a wider trend, it is increasingly important we continue to develop new stadiums around the world. For example: 

• Seattle’s Climate Pledge arena has installed significant rooftop solar and electrified building operations using innovative technologies. 
• Stadiums on Coldpay’s latest tour are using batteries and kinetic energy from dancing fans to minimize energy needs from its tours. 
• State Farm Stadium entered into an agreement with the local energy providers to offer local businesses elecriticty savings for reducing energy use during peak demand. 

‍

For the climate venture ecosystem, stadiums should be seen as a potential ‘first customer’ or partner for investing in and piloting new technologies. Opportunities include

• Testing modular solutions that can easily adapt to the variability of stadium requirements (e.g., micro hydrogen electrolysers or electric heat pumps)
• Solving unique stadium challenges (e.g., our portfolio company, Polar Beer Taps, reduces the immense energy and labour required to serve cold beverages)
• Circular solutions that solve waste removal challenges while creating new products (e.g., micro waste to energy kilns or water filtration technologies that extract valuable byproducts) 
• Promoting local renewable energy projects that can benefit from energy credit purchases by stadiums looking to offset unavoidable emissions

‍