Q2 Stadium’s Green Roots include material impact reductions, explains Walter P Moore’s Director of Sustainability, Dirk Kestner. View full article in the 2021 2nd quarter issue of PanStadia & Arena Management.
Overview
Q2 Stadium, the home of Austin’s first professional sports team, Austin FC, has embraced the city’s ethos of being mindful of resource consumption and ecological impacts.
The stadium’s pursuit of a LEED rating is supported by many of the design considerations widely understood to be part of modern sustainable design—those that address energy and water consumption, connection to public transportation, walkability, and management of rainfall. However, the project’s sustainable design approach also included consideration of the life cycle environmental impacts of the materials used to construct the building. New buildings, like Q2 Stadium, are increasingly electrified.
In line with Austin Energy’s plan to achieve 100% carbon-free electrical generation by 2035, the emissions caused by building operations will decrease as the electrical grid is increasingly supplied by renewable resources.
This means that a larger portion of the emissions associated with constructing, maintaining, and operating the stadium have already occurred—well before the first game. While overlooked for most of the past decade, the emissions associated with extracting, processing, shipping, installing, and maintaining the materials used in the building are gaining increased prominence.
