The San Diego Padres have been awarded the first-ever “Energy HERO” Award from Renovate America, in recognition of the Major League Baseball team’s leadership and innovation to conserve resources and protect the environment.
The Padres have made significant investments to improve water and energy efficiency at PETCO Park as part of the team’s Go Green Initiative. The team has also maximized recycling opportunities for fans, vendors, and staff and taken advantage of the latest technologies aimed at limiting water and energy waste.
“Sustainability is a team effort: Everyone has a part to play when it comes to reducing our region’s demand for water and energy, and the Padres are leading by example,” said JP McNeill, Founder and CEO of Renovate America. “By slashing overall energy usage in PETCO Park by 40 percent and by conserving hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a year, the Padres are showing fans that commitment to sustainability starts at home. At Renovate America, we share this ideal: our HERO Program is on track to save San Diegans nearly half a billion dollars on their future utility bills, not to mention reducing their future residential water usage by more than a billion gallons.”
Padres Vice President of Ballpark Operations and General Manager of PETCO Park Mark Guglielmo said the team was proud and honored to accept the first-ever Energy HERO award from Renovate America.
“A commitment to energy and water conservation, as well as to the implementation of sustainable practices across PETCO Park, are a priority for our organization,” Guglielmo said. “We are proud to partner with local companies like Renovate America that share our commitment to being leaders in this realm.”
San Diego-based Renovate America partners with state and local governments to offer HERO, a property assessed clean energy (PACE) financing program, to communities. HERO is the leading residential PACE program in the U.S. and has financed more than $1.75 billion of improvements. This unique public-private partnership offers consumers access to financing for more than 60 types of products that reduce energy and water consumption, without the need for government funding. The HERO Program has received a number of recognitions including a Climate Leadership Certificate for Innovative Partnerships by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, inclusion in the 2016 White House Water Summit, the Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award in California, and the Urban Land Institute Best of the Best.
