Fenway Park, home to the Boston Red Sox, is one of America’s oldest Major League Baseball (MLB) stadiums located in Boston, Massachusetts. It hosted its first game on April 9, 1912 in an exhibition against Harvard College. Fenway park is also a green energy hub!

Renewable Energy at Fenway Park

The Red Sox were the first MLB team to install solar thermal panels in their stadium in 2008. The 28 solar thermal panels are located on the roof behind home plate. They help heat water throughout the facility and replace 37% of gas traditionally used in this process. This eliminates 18 tons of annual CO2 emissions, equivalent to the following:

• 4 passenger vehicles on the road for a year
• Annual carbon sequestration of 15 acres of forests
• Electricity emissions from 3 single-family homes for a year

Encouraging Green Transportation for Fans

In addition to renewable energy inside the stadium, Fenway Park encourages spectators to join them in their sustainability initiatives by taking public transportation or a bike. Public transit is located within walking distance of Fenway Park. It can be the most convenient, least expensive, and environmentally friendly way to navigate Boston.

You can also travel Boston and visit Fenway Park via Hubway, Massachusetts’s public bike share system that runs through Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville. Hubway launched in 2011, and currently has more than 1600 bikes at more than 160 stations. There are 3 stations that provide convenient access to Fenway Park: Kenmore Square, the corner of Boylston Street and Yawkey Way, and Overland Street.

To encourage green transportation, Fenway Park offers free bike valet parking for ticketed patrons at all home games. It is located across from Gate D on the corner of Van Ness Street and Yawkey Way.

The Red Sox Recycle

Fenway Park also emphasizes the importance of recycling. It is a single-stream recycling facility. This means that all recyclable materials at the stadium can be co-mingled. Blue recycling bins are located throughout Fenway Park to encourage fans to recycle.

In addition to strategically located recycling bins, the Boston Red Sox also have their own recycling posse. The Poland Spring Green Team was launched in 2008, and it is a group of volunteers who spread throughout the stadium seats to collect recyclables from fans during all home games.

Where do the park’s recyclables go? To the Big Belly Trash and Recycling Stations that surround the perimeter of Fenway Park. These trash stations contain solar-powered compactors and can collect 5 times as much waste as the standard trash bin. This innovative design reduces collection frequency as well as harmful emissions from traveling trash vehicles.

What is not recycled or composted is sent to a waste-to-energy plant in Saugus, Massachusetts. This facility generates renewable energy and delivers it to the local utility. It has a generating capacity of 38 megawatts and produces enough energy to supply 47,000 Massachusetts homes!

Heading to NECA 2016? You don’t want to miss out on Fenway Park’s commitment to sustainability! Come visit us at booths #227 and #427. For more information on NECA 2016 in Boston, Massachusetts, visit neca.southwire.com.

For more information on Southwire’s sustainability initiatives, visit southwire.com/sustainability.