NHL Venue Metrics will track areas such as energy, water, waste and recycling, and it is hoped the insights gathered will allow the league to advance and achieve its sustainability objective of reducing its ecological impact where possible.
The NHL has determined that its clubs’ venue operations comprise around 70% of the league’s overall carbon footprint. The league has called on SAP to find a technology solution that seeks to reduce this impact, and the new data-driven platform will be made available to all teams and their arena partners.
Last month, the NHL invited all 32 clubs and arena operators to use the platform and input historical data from 2018 until mid-2022 to analyse and identify an appropriate baseline. The implementation of NHL Venue Metrics is already underway this season.
Omar Mitchell, vice-president of sustainable infrastructure and growth initiatives at the NHL, said: “For years the NHL has been on a journey to embed sustainable business practices across the league and its member clubs. The NHL Venue Metrics tool is a true game-changing innovation to help us understand our environmental impacts and create viable insights to improve our ecological impact.”
NHL Venue Metrics will include a data collection for clubs and venues to share relevant resource consumption and environmental data; a processing and verification engine allowing the league to track data consistency; and a visualisation dashboard showcasing relevant environmental, consumption and financial insights.
The platform marks the NHL’s latest and extended use of the SAP Business Technology Platform, which has been at the forefront of the league’s co-innovation efforts across multiple areas of its business.
Amy Schulz, senior director of global sponsorships at SAP, added: “At SAP, one of our priorities is providing partners with sustainable technology solutions so they can track and incorporate feasible goals for their business
“The NHL is a longstanding co-innovation partner of ours. With its cloud software foundation built on SAP BTP, we could not only develop a custom solution to meet its business objectives, but the solution will come at no cost to the clubs. It’s a huge step forward as the NHL looks to decrease its carbon footprint and improve sustainable efficiencies.”
