Rogers Arena looking to switch to LED lighting

[-Vintage Canuck-]

Corporate initiatives revealed at conference to launch Metro Vancouver’s National Zero Waste Council:

Rogers Arena, home to the Vancouver Canucks, expects to switch to LED lighting soon as part of a larger strategy to reduce the venue’s environmental footprint and reduce waste.

“We’re looking at upgrading our lighting system in the very near future,” said Michael Doyle, general manager of Rogers Arena and executive vice-president of Canucks Sports & Entertainment. “LED lights are one of the biggest impacts we’ll have.”

Doyle was speaking to more than 500 people attending a Metro Vancouver zero-waste conference Wednesday aimed at exchanging ideas on various initiatives to reduce waste from all sectors of society.

The switch at Rogers Arena could involve the replacement of up to 300 1,000-watt bulbs. The National Hockey League would also be involved to ensure the lighting is suitable for broadcasting and to monitor the amount of reflection on the ice surface.

Metro Vancouver used the conference to launch the National Zero Waste Council, an initiative to bring government, business and non-governmental organizations together to work nationally and internationally to influence consumer behaviour, product design and packaging in the hopes of reducing waste and encouraging recycling and reuse of products.

“We need to change the way we are thinking about garbage,” said council chair Malcolm Brodie, mayor of Richmond. “We really are on a journey here.”

Michael Buda, director of policy and research for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, credited Metro Vancouver for taking the lead on what is certain to be a challenging issue.

“A culture change, nothing is harder than that,” he said. “It’s going to be a long, hard road.”

Local governments in Canada spend about $2.6 billion to manage solid waste every year. “It’s a great example of the power of local government,” Buda said.

Rogers Arena has a goal of diverting 90 per cent of its waste from landfills by 2016, up from the current 54 per cent and 12 per cent from four years ago.

“We obviously use a lot of electricity for lighting and to keep the arena cool for hockey and warm for concerts,” Doyle said. “Montreal (the Bell Center) changed to an LED lighting system that not only saves electricity but also results in much less heat, which also helps in cooling the building.”

Other initiatives include the composting of unused food and donations to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank. Meters are also being installed to measure water, electrical and gas consumption to better track sustainability goals. “How do we get more efficient, producing the best ice ... but using less energy?” Doyle said.

Unused kitchen oil is recycled as bio-diesel oil. Broken hockey sticks go to BC Children’s Hospital to help stabilize legs after surgery.

Boyle said it’s important to make the system easy for customers, noting it is a split-second choice on whether to place compostable and recyclables, such as a pizza box or a beer cup, into the correct bin and avoid it winding up in the waste stream.

“Making it simple is key for us and trying to limit the amount of choices so they can do the right thing.”

Rogers Arena also works with the Green Sports Alliance, which comprises some 200 professional and collegiate teams and venues in Canada and the U.S.

Rogers Arena, formerly GM Place, has entertained 25 million patrons since opening in 1995.

Conference delegates also heard from award-winning documentary filmmakers Grant Baldwin and Jen Rustemeyer, who survived on food that would have been tossed out for their latest 75-minute work, Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story, due for release in spring 2014.

Rustemeyer said one of their most shocking discoveries was the amount of food needlessly tossed out simply because it had

exceeded the best-before date.

“It’s about peak freshness,” Rustemeyer said. “It’s not the date at which you’ll drop dead if you eat something.”

She added there is no law against companies donating such food to the needy. “When we start to look at these dates and treat them as the gospel, we fail to use our own judgment.”

Another speaker at the Vancouver conference, Alain Brandon, director of government relations for Loblaw Companies Ltd., said that even simple management measures can yield big conservation dividends.

Since the company started charging five cents for a plastic bag in 2009, five billion bags have been diverted from landfills, reducing the number of bags leaving its stores by 70 per cent.

“The impact of that small change has been amazing,” he said. “That’s an enormous amount.”

Also starting in 2009, Loblaw teamed up with other competitors in the industry to tackle the problem of clamshell containers, which are widely used by retail food stores to protect food from damage and increase shelf life.

Problem is, they came in a wide range of plastic types that confounded recycling. Today, the number of Canadians with access to recycling programs for these clamshell containers has jumped from 10 per cent to more than 50 per cent.

Brandon added that despite Loblaw’s corporate policy promoting diversion, a survey of the company’s outlets across Canada shows a wide range of compliance, ranging from 17 per cent to 85 per cent.

“It’s not a happy-ever-after story yet,” he said.

Professor Alan Kingstone, director of the Brain and Attention Research Lab at University of B.C., said that by designing more open buildings, people will feel there is a greater chance of being observed by others.

That way, they will be more likely to do the right thing when it comes to putting trash in the proper receptacles, he said.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Canucks+plan+make+switch+lighting/9045033/story.html

[Horny Manatee]

Oh, another reason to raise prices! Sweet!

[Ghostsof1915]

Won't switching to LED lights save energy and the lights will have to be replaced less often thus saving money?

[Blackberries]

Will this make everything brighter?

[Apple Juice]

Wouldn't LED lights also increase temperature within the arena?

[Henrik Kesler]

LEDs will make the lighting super spotty unless they invest in some super sweet dimmers, ($$$$) and even then I'm not convinced it won't look like crap.

[Shredder]

I want glow in the dark ones so I can

[forever_hope]

Speaking about lights, does anyone else not like the stanchion lights very much? I find them cheap and ineffective. Would be much better if it used bright blue LED lights IMO.

[GoaltenderInterference]

Speaking about lights, does anyone else not like the stanchion lights very much? I find them cheap and ineffective. Would be much better if it used bright blue LED lights IMO.

[Pouria]

Speaking about lights, does anyone else not like the stanchion lights very much? I find them cheap and ineffective. Would be much better if it used bright blue LED lights IMO.

[forever_hope]

They look like the Jedi are getting ready to fight a war.

[forever_hope]

I actually wished they would've put OLED curved strips in the stanchions which would make it look like a solid light post. It would be easier and more dynamic to program and would look 10 times better than LED while using much less electricity. They would be able to even have images in the stanchions and different light effects that would make for brilliant presentations and add more to the entertainment value.

Here is what I mean by OLED lighting:

It is more high tech, more durable, uses less energy, more dynamic and more visually appealing. It can also be as bright or brighter than the led lights they are using now. This technology will soon come to TVs to make them paper thin, since the lights could be as thin as a film.

[hsedin33]

Wouldn't LED lights also increase temperature within the arena?

[Pouria]

Nope, they don't heat up at all, they aren't even bulbs. If anything they would reduce the temp.

[PowerAids]

Wouldn't LED lights also increase temperature within the arena?

[Apple Juice]

Nope, they don't heat up at all, they aren't even bulbs. If anything they would reduce the temp.

[avelanch]

Oh didn't notice they used it like that for pregame. Wish they used that instead of the one for goals..

[avelanch]

Hmm I never knew. I dunno what the lights are called but you leave em on long enough and it heats up your room instantly. Not the regular light bulbs. I don't know what it's called.

[avelanch]

LEDs will make the lighting super spotty unless they invest in some super sweet dimmers, ($$$$) and even then I'm not convinced it won't look like crap.

[billabong]

This quickly turned into a bunch of electricians trying to out smart each other...