Earth Day 2018

Happy Earth Day, Bucco Nation!

Today’s the day we all stop to pay tribute to the planet and discuss the things we can do to make it better. When we were younger, our Science teachers once told us ‘we only have one Earth, so we need to care for it.’ We thought that was an overly simplistic look at it, but we wrote it down to use in a future blog post (obviously) — and here we are today!

Every year we celebrate Earth Day and talk about the good things we’re doing around the ballpark to help better the environment. This year is no different!

This season, we’ve partnered with Rivendale Farms to bring some of the freshest produce to the concessions of PNC Park and in the clubhouse. Not to mention — this includes some of the best chocolate milk we’ve ever had (but seriously, we could do an entire blog post on this milk alone… so we’ll move on).

Also this season, Rivendale is the presenting sponsor of the PNC Park suite level. With that in mind we’ll partner with them to develop a Suite Patio Rooftop Garden, which will be located on the suite level patio (located behind suites 25–31). Once completed, the garden will be nourished by the compost byproducts from the concessions and the produce will be included in recipes throughout PNC Park!

That’s not all we have going on around the ol’ ballpark. Throughout the year, we work on sustainable practices through recycling and separation. In 2017, PNC Park boasted a diversion rate of over 65% with more than 1,300 TONS of waste diverted from local landfills.

Since the launch of our award winning “Let’s Go Bucs. Let’s Go Green.” program in 2008, we have recycled over 7 million pounds of material from PNC Park by successfully diverting out of the waste stream.

Some cool stats:

• The Pirates new ballpark field lights, installed in 2017, decreased Pirates energy demand by over 2,000 Kilowatt Days
• In 2018 Direct Energy will offer the Pirates 100% renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) on Earth Day, meaning all energy used at PNC Park will come from a renewable energy source.
• Pirates diversion rate at PNC Park in 2017 was 65.5%
• Over 1,318 tons of waste were diverted from local landfills in 2017.

The celebration of Earth Day is great and really works to ensure people are continuing to think about how they can reduce waste, use less energy, etc. But here at PNC Park, we don’t just celebrate one day a year — our efforts are front of mind year-round.