INTENTION

Sustainability is an integral part of the design of Q2 Stadium, home of Austin FC – Austin’s first Major League Soccer (MLS) team, and it continues to be a top priority as the team strives to make the venue a home that Austinites can enjoy for years to come.

Sharing in that mission of sustainability and being leaders in environmental stewardship is Okapi Environmental Services, LLC (OES), a management company with a consulting arm that provides full service, turnkey consulting with real-world experience that drives sustainability growth for organizations that need a partner to help move more strategically and at a faster pace.

“Okapi Environmental Services has been especially great as we’ve really formalized our zero-waste goal,” said Nick Otte, Vice President of Stadium Operations at Austin FC. “Their team is made up of certified TRUE advisors, so we really utilized them to help us understand what credits were necessary to achieve Total Resource Use and Efficiency (TRUE) Certification. Okapi helped us realize what was possible and how to get all the TRUE documentation together. Long term, the data they’ve collected for us along with their knowledge on the EcoVisor tool has been really helpful.”

Working together, OES and Austin FC have taken steps toward a greater environmentally sustainable gameday experience. Q2 Stadium engages its fans, team members and back-of-house staff to demonstrate a commitment to sustainability leadership. Q2 Stadium and Austin FC prioritizes processes, operations and actions to reduce waste and resources throughout their system lifecycle. All Q2 Stadium’s waste diversion initiatives are part of Austin FC’s Evergreen Sustainability Platform.

ACTION

To enhance sustainability efforts at Q2 Stadium, Austin FC, along with its sustainability partner, OES conducted a thorough analysis of the stadium’s waste handling processes, reporting systems, and results. Through those findings, Austin FC and OES developed a comprehensive plan for driving sustainability results and measuring sustainability data to help the stadium track and quantify its success. Training, assessing the most effective strategies for achieving diversion success, and collecting data from each match were all taken into account.

IMPACT

1. Austin FC Achieves First Zero Waste Certification for a Soccer-Specific Stadium

With the help of its fans and Q2 stadium staff, Austin FC earned its Total Resource Use and Efficiency (TRUE) certification, making it the first soccer-specific stadium and fifth sports venue worldwide to achieve this honor. By earning this certification and by consistently diverting more than 90 percent of its waste, Q2 Stadium is now officially a zero-waste venue. OES’ dedicated team of credentialed TRUE Advisors provided hands-on consulting, connecting Austin FC officials with vendors who share a commitment to sustainability.

2. Austin FC Builds a Customized Recycling Sorting Facility On-Site

These collaborative efforts led to the creation of an on-site customized single stream recycling processing facility. The new mini Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) is designed to maximize the efficiency of sorting and recycling operations at Q2 stadium. This facility helped Q2 Stadium achieve and maintain an impressive diversion rate of over 90% from the landfill in a groundbreaking achievement. Q2 Stadium’s commitment to sustainability is driven by strategic planning and operational support from Okapi Environmental Services.

3. Austin FC Replaces Manual Spreadsheet Data Entry with Power BI Platform for Automated Ingestion and Aggregation of Sustainability Data

This collaboration included the utilization of EcoVisor, a data integration platform for recording, reporting, and visualizing multiple data points including all diversion numbers from each match and historically, as well as electrical, water, and gas usage. Q2 Stadium in conjunction with Okapi Environmental Services has developed ongoing improvement processes from the accessibility to real time data which removes the Austin FC team from having to monitor the spreadsheet collection. Utilizing EcoVisor also allows for continuous data improvement instead of collecting data in unconnected, manual spreadsheets.

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PRESS RELEASES:

• Q2 Stadium TRUE Certification Press Release
  • https://www.texasdisposal.com/okapi-environmental-services-paves-the-way-for-austin-fcs-q2-stadium-to-become-the-worlds-first-true-certified-soccer-specific-stadium/
• Mini Materials Recovery Facility at Q2 Stadium Press Release
  • https://www.texasdisposal.com/texas-disposal-systems-builds-mrf-inside-q2-stadium-for-austin-fc-tds/