Iconic Australian Highlights Sustainability Agenda

Tony Gloudemans

he business of facility management is about managing complexity—from Tmaking best use of how a large facility operates, to ensuring that a building’s occupants are able to work to best effect. As the complexities of the information age have themselves spawned new ways of working and government legislation has heaped new regulations on building design and management, the role of the facility management professional has become indispensable.

It’s a branch of management that is funda- mental—providing best practices for the management of the physical asset of a build- ing to the people who have to work in it. It is, however, a management skill that in most cases involves known parameters of space utilization and human traffic. Not so in one area of facility management practice—a major stadium.

The uniqueness of sports facilities Facility management in sports not only involves the usual challenges of space utiliza- tion, asset management and facility main- tenance—but the particular imperatives of having to safely control very large numbers of people, sometimes all converging at once on turnstiles or food service areas. It’s a customer management challenge that the world’s largest stadia have to deal with on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis.

Many are best known in the sports sector for artificial turf and reinforced natural grass systems, which includes a market leading system that gives a sports surface of 100 percent natural grass reinforced with synthetic grass fibres. It’s in use in

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American football, European soccer—and The venue’s name is something of a misno- in the Australian National Heritage List— was the sports surface for two FIFA World mer, as its role in Australian goes much preserving its national values for generations Cup venues the summer of 2010. Modern further than just . Originally built in to come. sport demands excellence in playing surface, 1853, it began as an and and by utilizing modern technology with was extensively developed between 2002 and The challenge for FMs industrial design, facility managers are able 2006. In 2010 it saw further refurbishment All of this presents a very real challenge for to provide it. to interior public areas, which also contain the MCG’s facility managers who not only the National Sports Museum and archive, have to manage a highly-popular venue for In addition, carpet manufacturers provide ’s only multi-sports museum. visitors and sports spectators, but ensure the flooring solutions across a wide variety of maintenance of a facility that can see hun- sectors, also utilizing design and technology Putting the stadium into context, it was dreds of thousands of feet every week of the to provide both aesthetics and functionality. ranked 15th in a 2010 list of the world’s year. At a corporate level, it means delivering This requires a close relationship between most important sports venues by a lead- on strategic and operational objectives on interior designers and facility management ing sports magazine. “SportsPro” magazine a day-to-day basis—particularly on match professionals to meet the ever-increasingly ranked each venue according to legacy, days or when a major rock concert is being complex challenges of today’s modern offices, location, history, size, versatility, grandeur held. It also means providing a safe and hospitals, schools or other public places— and technology. The MCG was described as efficient environment and monitoring every giving guidance on, for example, whole-life “the spiritual home of Australian sport [and] aspect of the stadium’s functions, for both costs. possibly one of the most versatile venues in the able-bodied and disabled, young and old. the world.” It came in ahead of, for example, The Cricket Ground Yankee Stadium and Augusta National Golf One project in the redevelopment of one The facility management role has changed. Club. stand of the MSG was to carpet interior A good example is a recent contract for spaces, being sensitive to the stadium’s one of the most iconic in the It’s a stadium that has hosted the 2006 international status, as well its multi-sport world—the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the 1956 heritage. In fulfilling the challenge, the in Australia. By any measure of size, it is Olympic Games, as well as FIFA World Cup design team adopted bold, modern col- massive at 2,122,783 square feet (197,213 Qualifiers and the 1992 . ors to introduce contemporary style to its 2011 January/February square meters) and is able to accommodate This year alone, just for the Australian foot- historical legacy and was able to perform 100,000 spectators. Its record attendance ball league, it has seen in excess of 1,000,000 against all the demands of design, color and was 121,696. spectators through the turnstiles. In hardwearing criteria. The dramatic color-

December 2005, the stadium was included ways chosen—in reds, blues, greens and

...... www.fmjonline.com 75 . We Make Things,” they said that products should be conceived from the very start with intelligent design and the intention that they will eventually be recycled, as either technical Facility Management Journal Facility or biological nutrients.

“Time Magazine” has called it “a unified phi- losophy that—in demonstrable and practical ways—is changing the design of the world.”

It’s a philosophy that looks at the world with a new perspective, because it doesn’t romanti- cize nature or demonize factories or manu- . facturing processes. It’s an approach that accepts that, in the modern world, the goal should be to find ways that balance commer- cial activity with the natural world.

A birth-to-rebirth philosophy sounds deceptively simple, but it turns conventional yellows—were designed to flow off the walls As an example of waste management, the sustainability on its head because convention and across the floors, creating interior spaces largest contributor of non-recyclable waste thinking is all about a language of negatives. filled with drama, perceptually linking the found was the polystyrene beer cup—with interior space with the exterior drama in the a total of almost 80 percent. The solution? The MCG has proved that closed loop stadium. Replace the non-recyclable polystyrene beer environmental programs work. The challenge cup with a recyclable closed loop PET beer for the facility management profession is to How sustainability comes into play cup. The MCG now recycles 100 percent recognize that sustainability is now as impor- The flooring solution also demonstrated a of this major waste contributor through the tant as cost, design or durability. And that it’s key globally-relevant change in facility man- closed loop program. good business. FMJ agement practice because, apart from style and durability, an important criterion of the It goes further. Since the introduction of * Statistics taken from the Department of MCG project was sustainability. closed loop recycling at the MCG, approxi- Conservation and Environment (New South Wales). mately 72 percent of all waste generated each Facility management is no longer about month is now recycled—the equivalent of operational efficiency or integrating busi- approximately 97 tons of recycled waste, Tony Gloudemans has many years of ness functions. It’s about carbon footprints, 48 tons of emitted carbon dioxide and 1.6 experience in the Australian carpet minimizing waste and maximizing energy million liters of water.* The stadium also business, working closely with efficiency. It’s yet another skill set for facility makes use of rainwater capture, solar panels facility managers, interior designers managers to learn and proved to be a good and other technologies that forward-looking and other specifiers. Gloudemans example of how solid environmental practice companies are adopting. has worked in senior management can also be a positive business practice—a for one of the country’s largest retail chains and clear representation of how companies with A new perspective successfully built the DESSO brand in Australia and . broadly similar commitments to the environ- For most companies, sustainability has been ment are increasingly working together. about assessing manufacturing and distri- bution processes and then finding ways to The MCG operates to strict principles of minimize the impact on the environment. sustainability and in the past few years has On the contrary, it should be about looking introduced rigorous closed loop recycling at the whole lifecycle of a product and, using programs. This now results in approximately technology and lateral thinking, finding ways 72 percent of all waste being recycled. The to recycle every component of that product guiding principles behind these commit- back into productive life. ments are all about reducing waste, reusing materials and using landfill only as a last This new philosophy of sustainability was resort. That represents a real commitment developed in 2002 by the German chem- for a stadium that feeds more than 300,000 ist Michael Braungart and an American corporate hospitality customers and serves architect William McDonough. In their more than 4 million food and beverage book, “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way products every year.

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