my name is Brian Leslie I’m the director
of building operations and team of green
here at the Air Canada Centre like to
welcome National Geographic the Air
Canada Centre and like to take you on a
tour to see our building and our
sustainability initiatives the goal that
we set for ourselves is a reduction of
the carbon footprint by thirty percent
reduction of our utility usage by thirty
percent and to divert one hundred
percent of our waste so one of the first
things we looked at was converting our
food and beverage stands from halogen
lights to LED lights big challenge in
that what we sell needs to show as well
as it can it needs to glisten everything
needs to shine and I think it was about
15 different lights that we actually
tried before we found something that
that looks the same as a halogen light
very very white very bright but uses
one-tenth of the electricity we didn’t
want to just become carbon neutral
through buying carbon credits we really
wanted to own the issue in the building
so the first thing we did is we measured
our carbon footprint and then because we
wanted to own it we try to reduce it as
much as we can we looked at doing our
retrofits we looked at our diversion we
looked at variable frequency drives on
all of our mechanical devices to
minimize our carbon footprint and then
once we were satisfied that we minimize
as much as we could then we would look
at offsetting the balance
this is our biggest goal of all we want
to convert and divert one hundred
percent of our waste ultimately from
waist to be recycled and brought back to
soil or recycled intimating the new
products again we divert five hundred
metric tons of organic material out of
this building every single year that we
didn’t do before and all of that a
growing organic material sent to a local
farm where it’s converted back to soil
we’re putting our our water bottle
recycling bins out so that we capture
all of the water bottles instead of them
going into the waste stream we collect
them and recycle them all this is a
great thing I show this to a lot of
people to show how far we’ve actually
come this is one of the original
Zamboni’s that we actually used to make
the ice back in the 30s and basically
it’s a 45 gallon drum with a towel on
the bottom and it would fill it up full
of water and push it around the rink for
hours at a time to try and build the ice
the towel would drag behind on the on
the water like this and just be soaking
wet and then that’s how they made the
ice that’s pretty old school
we’ve converted our system to a reverse
osmosis system which is the same sort of
idea that you can get in your house to
make your drinking water and basically
uses a whole bunch of very very small
perforated filters to take the material
out of the other the water to make it
pure because a pure water is clearer
it’s harder it so it makes for a better
ice sheet I think the biggest difference
is that when when we shovel the ice the
snow comes back and then ends up down
the drain we don’t want to be putting
anything down the drain that has
chemicals in it so using a reverse
osmosis system actually helps us help
the environment by putting pure water
down the drain as opposed to what you
saw upstairs to Zamboni from Maple Leaf
Gardens this is what we use now very
very technical very efficient in what it
does instead of dropping water onto the
towel actually has a spray nozzle system
that atomizes the water to make it more
efficient the most energy-efficient
gas-powered General Motors car is
actually the engine that’s in our
Zamboni one of the other big differences
you’ll see from back in the day is that
the ice is white your old ice was never
painted this this ice is actually
painted with with environmentally
friendly paint as well we take a
holistic approach to all these things
you know where vinegar can work we
actually use vinegar
this is where we bring the air back from
the bowl we mix it through our chillers
and all of these chill is here both
operate on deep lake water cooling so
there isn’t actually a mechanical device
making the water cold it comes right off
the bottom of Lake Ontario so it’s very
efficient the biggest source of water is
actually everybody exhaling in the bowl
so we have to remove that water to make
sure our ice quality stays up this unit
here is able to remove about 1,700
pounds of water every single hour I can
give you an indication of how much
pressure is in this building by how hard
it is to pull his door open you can feel
the suction from outside here
a lot of power after going on the tour
of the Air Canada Centre hopefully you
learn a little bit of our team of green
and our environmental movement if you
will changing the way we do things
wearing the green hat if you will our
fans want to see it our staff want to
see it we want to see it how can we be
easier on the planet even inside a
building how can we change the way we do
things do less than the impact it means
that somebody cares because otherwise
you know it’s way easier just to chuck
it and having people care is so much
better
of building operations and team of green
here at the Air Canada Centre like to
welcome National Geographic the Air
Canada Centre and like to take you on a
tour to see our building and our
sustainability initiatives the goal that
we set for ourselves is a reduction of
the carbon footprint by thirty percent
reduction of our utility usage by thirty
percent and to divert one hundred
percent of our waste so one of the first
things we looked at was converting our
food and beverage stands from halogen
lights to LED lights big challenge in
that what we sell needs to show as well
as it can it needs to glisten everything
needs to shine and I think it was about
15 different lights that we actually
tried before we found something that
that looks the same as a halogen light
very very white very bright but uses
one-tenth of the electricity we didn’t
want to just become carbon neutral
through buying carbon credits we really
wanted to own the issue in the building
so the first thing we did is we measured
our carbon footprint and then because we
wanted to own it we try to reduce it as
much as we can we looked at doing our
retrofits we looked at our diversion we
looked at variable frequency drives on
all of our mechanical devices to
minimize our carbon footprint and then
once we were satisfied that we minimize
as much as we could then we would look
at offsetting the balance
this is our biggest goal of all we want
to convert and divert one hundred
percent of our waste ultimately from
waist to be recycled and brought back to
soil or recycled intimating the new
products again we divert five hundred
metric tons of organic material out of
this building every single year that we
didn’t do before and all of that a
growing organic material sent to a local
farm where it’s converted back to soil
we’re putting our our water bottle
recycling bins out so that we capture
all of the water bottles instead of them
going into the waste stream we collect
them and recycle them all this is a
great thing I show this to a lot of
people to show how far we’ve actually
come this is one of the original
Zamboni’s that we actually used to make
the ice back in the 30s and basically
it’s a 45 gallon drum with a towel on
the bottom and it would fill it up full
of water and push it around the rink for
hours at a time to try and build the ice
the towel would drag behind on the on
the water like this and just be soaking
wet and then that’s how they made the
ice that’s pretty old school
we’ve converted our system to a reverse
osmosis system which is the same sort of
idea that you can get in your house to
make your drinking water and basically
uses a whole bunch of very very small
perforated filters to take the material
out of the other the water to make it
pure because a pure water is clearer
it’s harder it so it makes for a better
ice sheet I think the biggest difference
is that when when we shovel the ice the
snow comes back and then ends up down
the drain we don’t want to be putting
anything down the drain that has
chemicals in it so using a reverse
osmosis system actually helps us help
the environment by putting pure water
down the drain as opposed to what you
saw upstairs to Zamboni from Maple Leaf
Gardens this is what we use now very
very technical very efficient in what it
does instead of dropping water onto the
towel actually has a spray nozzle system
that atomizes the water to make it more
efficient the most energy-efficient
gas-powered General Motors car is
actually the engine that’s in our
Zamboni one of the other big differences
you’ll see from back in the day is that
the ice is white your old ice was never
painted this this ice is actually
painted with with environmentally
friendly paint as well we take a
holistic approach to all these things
you know where vinegar can work we
actually use vinegar
this is where we bring the air back from
the bowl we mix it through our chillers
and all of these chill is here both
operate on deep lake water cooling so
there isn’t actually a mechanical device
making the water cold it comes right off
the bottom of Lake Ontario so it’s very
efficient the biggest source of water is
actually everybody exhaling in the bowl
so we have to remove that water to make
sure our ice quality stays up this unit
here is able to remove about 1,700
pounds of water every single hour I can
give you an indication of how much
pressure is in this building by how hard
it is to pull his door open you can feel
the suction from outside here
a lot of power after going on the tour
of the Air Canada Centre hopefully you
learn a little bit of our team of green
and our environmental movement if you
will changing the way we do things
wearing the green hat if you will our
fans want to see it our staff want to
see it we want to see it how can we be
easier on the planet even inside a
building how can we change the way we do
things do less than the impact it means
that somebody cares because otherwise
you know it’s way easier just to chuck
it and having people care is so much
better
Please follow and like us: