Gerry Fredericks, Pioneer Group

GERRY FREDERICKS HEAD OF GROWTH, SALES STRATEGY & TRANSFORMATION, PIONEER GROUP

Sustainability & Stadia - How AV Can Help

Images: Pioneer Group

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ustainability is a huge topic right now in stadia, and rightly so. Most clubs are dedicated to increasing their sustainability and reducing their environmental impact, not just through merchandising products, but within their stadiums - the real heart of a club. In the Premier League, Emirates Stadium and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (two stadiums that have been built in the last 16 years) are at the top of the sustainability leader board; this leader board considers key factors, such as renewable energy use, carbon emissions, plastic use and water saving. Most clubs in the UK are dependent on existing facilities, often constructed many years ago when the notion of sustainability and biodiversity were unknown considerations. However, for those clubs fortunate enough to be constructing new facilities, this is now top of the mind. Stadiums are expensive to build and run, particularly in energy terms, even more so through the recent increases in the cost of energy for power, cooling, and lighting. There are, however, some quick wins that clubs should seriously consider, bolstering their sustainability charter and move progressively to achieving government guidelines and recommendations to accelerate carbon footprint reduction. Migrating away from halogen and LCD systems to LED-powered solutions is paramount. Energy consumption reduction for these new forms of technology is considerable. However, experience shows that many clubs will continue to sweat assets, even if they are no longer operationally cost-effective to run – due to restrictive capital budget cycles. Over the last ten years or so, we’ve seen a progressive migration of companies’ data centre assets to the public cloud operators (Amazon, Google, Microsoft). Businesses realised they couldn’t continue to build and run their own data centres due to high levels of energy, staffing, and real estate costs and that they required a more flexible, consumptionbased model that could be easily scaled (up or down) based on business imperatives and market conditions. If it works for IT – then Audiovisual and Digital Signage solutions should be the same – it’s all converging. The AV industry is lagging behind the IT landscape, and few, if any, suppliers can provide a more commercially innovative mechanism to consume these services. That’s got to change. At Pioneer Group, we’re building a blueprint for clubs to consume AV and Digital Signage as a Service. So, how’s that going to reduce my carbon footprint and improve my sustainability credentials, I hear you ask?

As technological advancements continue at pace, every club should have the opportunity to modernise its assets at a point where the user experience and the reduction in energy costs are compelling. Currently, this isn’t the case. Old assets are simply held on for too long with no offset strategy to compensate. Moving to a Managed Service scenario addresses this. As clubs and stadiums consider greater fan experience and opportunities for their customers to become more involved with everything the club has to offer, including food and beverage, merchandising and retail, digital signage systems both inside and around the ground will become more commonplace. Restaurant menus, seating availability, directional services for concessionaires, and advertising opportunities will continue to grow. These digital signage assets are often sited on totems, in the ground or on building facades. Pioneer Group has forged an alliance program with Vertical Meadows. It’s a really innovative solution and softens the look of the technology, making it much more appealing to the eye by bringing “Meadows” to the ground. It’s a simple idea but something that works really well to help clubs offset their carbon footprint. They are a rich species of wildflower meadows that are a haven for biodiversity, attracting bees, butterflies, and ladybirds with a high pollen flower mix. Wild strawberries produce food for the local birds. Additional benefits include noise absorption and reduce rainwater run-off. Pioneer Group will be bringing these ideas to more of our customers over the coming months. In bowl, lighting is directly associated with audio output capability. Modernising the lighting and perimeter systems is only doing half the job. Modern PAVA systems are built to produce better sound quality, consuming considerably lower energy resources, whether in an active or passive state. We have partnered with several global leaders in this space. We will be recommending PAVA as part of our solutions portfolio for our “As a Service offering”, something we believe that clubs will be keen to adopt once they have fully grasped the commercial model.