Please invest in Our Daily Planet today, by making a one time or monthly contribution.
We do not charge our readers a subscription fee for our content. We want to continue to grow our readership, particularly among millennials and public servants. Voluntary contributions from readers will help us employ interns and freelance journalists, expand our content, and reach a larger audience.
If you make a contribution of $150 or more, you will become an official “Friend of the Planet” and receive a Friend of the Planet T-shirt or water bottle. You can also submit opinion essays to us for our consideration for posting on our new “Bright Ideas” op-ed page.
Our Daily Planet is a daily morning email (M-F) to keep you informed of the stories shaping our environment. If these issues matter to you, we’d like to be the best ten minutes of your morning.
Congratulations to the New England Patriots on their 6th Super Bowl win last night! While this is a huge achievement for Tom Brady, the real star of the show may have been the stadium in which the game was played. Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz stadium is the world’s most sustainable sporting venue and has the highest LEED certification score of any sports facility ever. The stadium has a long list of sustainable street cred:
82,500 square feet of LED lighting, including an LED scoreboard
On-site solar array which generates 1.6 million kilowatt-hours, enough energy to power 10 Atlanta Falcons games
Capacity to store 2 million gallons of stormwater to help prevent flooding in nearby neighborhoods
48 EV charging stations
Additionally, the stadium is in downtown Atlanta and leads the NFL with the highest percentage of fans using public transportation to attend Falcons games. The stadium event has a bike valet for fans commuting to games by bicycle.
Why This Matters: Big sporting events like the Super Bowl can generate a tremendous amount of waste and use staggering amounts of energy (not to mention the carbon intensity of fans traveling to the game). The NFL has made a commitment to reducing waste and increasing sustainability at the Super Bowl and through its leadership, new stadiums are following the lead and incorporating these metrics into their design and planning. As Axios reported, while 6 NFL stadiums currently have LEED certification, and others have clear plans in place, 6 operate absent any announced initiatives. Additionally, the NFL recently announced a membership with the Green Sports Alliance, an organization aimed at encouraging green and renewable practices at sporting events.
A new study by leading economists and scientists released yesterday makes a strong case for conserving at least 30% of the planet by demonstrating that investing in nature as opposed to using it up yields significantly better economic results as well as saving money that would otherwise be spent on the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss.
Why This Matters: Since it is TBT I (Monica) will harken back to 1992’s political mantra — “it’s the economy, stupid.”
Why This Matters: And while residential waste is greatly increasing, fewer materials are being recycled other than cardboard, which is much in demand. Recycling, like so many other local programs, needs federal financial support and soon.
In its annual Sustainability Report, Ford Motors made several key pledges in addition to the promise to be carbon neutral as a company by 2050. In addition, they will use 100 percent locally sourced renewable energy for all manufacturing plants globally by 2035, aspire to achieve zero air emissions from our facilities, only use recycled and renewable plastics in our vehicles globally and eliminate single-use plastics from our operations by 2030, and achieve true zero waste to landfill across our operations, among other social responsibility commitments.
Why This Matters: Other car companies have focused on products — Daimler Chrysler, VW, and Tesla come to mind.
Our Daily Planet is your daily dose of the stories shaping our world and the ways that you can take action. From the climate crisis to the protection of biodiversity, if these issues matter to you then please subscribe & stay informed!
Your privacy is Important! We promise never to use your email address to send you spam or advertisements.
