America’s National Football League championing sustainability

America's National Football League (NFL) is providing some of the biggest advocates of green building and sustainability in the United States.

The San Francisco 49ers will move from Candlestick Park, their home since 1961, to Santa Clara in the heart of Silicon Valley for the start of the 2014 season and the Levi’s Stadium will set a new benchmark for green building in sports when the facility opens in August 2014. It could become the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Standard building in the NFL.

To be LEED certified, buildings earn points in five categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy, materials and resources, and buildings must be reviewed by the U.S. Green Building Council before being officially certified.

A geothermal heat pump will transfer heat from the sun-drenched ground around the stadium to the hot water supply and an 1,800-gallon-per-minute water recycling system will irrigate the sports field and landscaping.

Bamboo and FSC-certified wood and reclaimed materials are being used; including wood rumoured to be from a dismantled unit at NASA's Moffett Field centre, within eyeshot of the 68,500-seat stadium.

The site is within walking distance of four public transit lines - travel options that also score LEED points. The 49ers’ research shows that up to 25 per cent of their fans are expected to use public transportation to get to the games, doubling the 10 per cent to 12 per cent of fans who currently use it to get to Candlestick.

A solar application will also be installed by NRG Energy next to a green roof with native plants. The system is anticipated to produce 468,000 kilowatts per hour annually, which should offset the energy demand of 10 NFL games and increase the building's overall efficiency by 10 per cent.

The president of the New England Patriots, Jonathan Kraft, is another figure who has been leading the NFL into a new ear of sustainability. The Patriots' Gillette Stadium opened in 2002 and it is estimated that annual savings of well over $1 million have been made through a 30 per cent reduction in energy consumption from lighting and heating automation, recycling, solar arrays and LED lighting. The stadium also has a closed loop water system that reclaims upwards of 16 million gallons of water a year in its own wastewater treatment plant.

In 2010, the Patriots installed at 500kW solar array and last year added a further 1.4MW that provides around 40 per cent of the energy needs for Patriot Place, a mall next to the stadium.

In 2010, Jeffrey Lurie, the billionaire owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, wanted to make a dramatic move to take the entire stadium off-grid. Leonard Bonacci, vice president of event operations and event services, said that was not technically feasible, but the stadium became net zero through the purchase of green power.

The stadium's 4MW wind and solar generating system went into service in February last year and is the largest clean energy installation in the NFL. It will produce 4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, offsetting the equivalent of 2,822 metric tonnes of CO2. The system's 11,000 solar panels and 14 wind turbines will also make significant cost savings. Over the 20-year power purchase agreement with NRG Energy, Bonacci estimates that cost savings could be in the region of $32 million.