Johnson Controls helps Miller Park earn LEED certification

MILWAUKEE, USA: Miller Park, home of the Milwaukee Brewers since 2001, has been recognized as the first stadium with a retractable roof and the third Major League Baseball stadium overall to become LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified in the category of Existing Building Operations and Maintenance. Johnson Controls, a global leader in delivering solutions that increase energy efficiency in buildings, is the facility manager for the stadium and coordinated the LEED process.

Johnson Controls was able to meet the special energy and ventilation requirements presented by the retractable roof. Only two other Major League Baseball stadiums have achieved LEED recognition for Existing Buildings – AT&T Park in San Francisco and Target Field in Minneapolis – and both are open-air facilities.

"Johnson Controls works on sustainability projects around the world and is proud to have facilitated this challenging certification process for its home town team," said Iain Campbell, VP and GM, Energy Solutions, Building Efficiency, Johnson Controls. "The Brewers organization deserves recognition for its commitment to make Miller Park among the most sustainable stadiums in professional sports."

The LEED rating system, developed by the US Green Building Council (USGBC), is a voluntary certification process that provides independent, third-party verification to confirm that a building is operating at the highest levels of efficiency and sustainability. The goal for LEED certification projects is to optimize and modernize facilities by introducing improvements that lower energy, operating and capital costs while improving indoor environments and reducing the impact on outdoor environments.

New improvements and initiatives contributing to the certification include:
* A new high definition scoreboard using 49 percent less energy.
* Upgrades to Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems, equipment and controls, plumbing, electrical lighting and power systems, expected to reduce 1,153 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually. This is the equivalent to taking 220 cars off the road each year.
* Replacement of old water fixtures to help save an anticipated 5.2 million gallons of water annually.
* Addition of more than 140 new recycling containers, averaging 10 tons of waste recycling each game.
* More than 50 percent of cleaning products meet sustainability criteria as "green cleaning" products.
* Smoking areas moved 25 feet from doors, windows and ventilation systems to preserve the indoor air quality for occupants.
* Donation of more than 7,000 pounds of food to area food banks and shelters in the last half of the 2011 season, providing 5,300 meals.

"LEED certification is a significant achievement for any building, but to gain certification for a building as complex as Miller Park is impressive," said Kim Hosken, director of Green Building Services, Building Efficiency, Johnson Controls, who worked extensively on the project. "We had to consider intricacies such as the nature of the facility, the sheer volume of people, materials and vendors, the operable roof, and overall complexity of the building operations."

Johnson Controls managed the entire LEED project at Miller Park, which included helping the Milwaukee Brewers identify ways to become more sustainable and to draft policies to help stadium service providers and vendors adhere to sustainability goals. Johnson Controls also provided sustainability training and conducted a waste audit by physically sorting through trash from Miller Park at Waste Management's Orchard Ridge Landfill in Menomonee Falls.

Johnson Controls has helped its customers to secure green building certification for more than 15 million square feet of building space worldwide. Johnson Controls also "walks the talk" at its own global headquarters in Glendale, Wis., which represents the largest concentration of LEED Platinum buildings (four) in the world.