The Phoenix Suns have formalized a partnership with Footprint, a locally based materials science company dedicated to sustainable technology. The partnership with Footprint will help transform the home of the Suns and Mercury into a laboratory for sustainable solutions, just ahead of the Suns’ tip off to the 2021-2022 season. 

Beginning with the team’s season opener Wednesday night, fans will see the replacement of plastic utensils and other concession items with Footprint’s plant-based alternatives. Over time, the arena will introduce additional Footprint products and technologies.

Footprint, which is based in Gilbert, was founded in 2014 by former Intel Engineers, Troy Swope and Yoke Chung. The company’s mission is to end the use of single-use plastics through the development of plant-based fiber technology. 

Footprint was recently recognized on the list and works with companies such as McDonald’s, Kraft Heinz, Beyond Meat, and Conagra. While nothing has been finalized, it was that Footprint has engaged in talks to go public by way of a merger with Gore Holdings VII Inc., a deal that would value the company upwards of $3 billion.

With the return of fans to sporting events, this partnership highlights the need for venues to implement more sustainable practices. Large scale sporting events and concerts present unique environmental challenges. One EPA found that each year sporting events produce 39 million pounds of waste per year. 

“The sports industry is going to start seeing that there is this movement around sustainability and what it means to be a part of it — I think all stadiums are going to see it as something they have to do and there will be minimum bars of transparency of what that means” Footprint chief marketing officer Susan Koehler to CNBC.

Through this partnership and the transformation of Footprint Center, the Phoenix Suns and Footprint have positioned themselves to be at the forefront of this emerging innovation. 

The front office leadership of the Phoenix Suns have emphasized this point and what this means for the organization. 

According to managing partner , “The idea is Footprint will create an innovation lab for us within our arena, and then we can take that and get other arenas throughout the world interested in doing the same thing.”

“They are going to help us eliminate single-use plastic within our arena and we are going to help them promote their brand so that over time they will be a household name,” said Sarver.

At an official ribbon cutting ceremony in front of the arena, Suns’ president and CEO, Jason Rowley, reiterated these sentiments. “We are confident that through the support, commitment and hard work of all stakeholders, Footprint Center will serve as the model sports and entertainment venue for sustainable innovation.”

in attendance included Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, and Larry Fitzgerald, who was named as the first Footprint Ambassador. Mayor Gallego spoke to the crowd and emphasized the importance of this partnership to the greater Phoenix community. 

“Just last night, the Phoenix City Council and I approved an updated, comprehensive Climate Action Plan that accelerates our goal to reach net-zero before 2050,” Gallego said. “I’m proud to have partners like the Suns and Footprint who are fully engaged in creating a healthy, sustainable future for Phoenix.”

The Suns have long been leaders when it comes to issues of sustainability and environmental concerns. They were one of the first arenas to switch to solar energy and have introduced various water conservation efforts. 

Coming off a historic season, which included a Western Conference championship and a Finals appearance, the Phoenix Suns will have an amplified platform to continue to promote this type of innovation. 

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The SCALE UP Program is a Tucson-based initiative to help local businesses become more sustainable, saving them money on utilities, providing educational resources and offering financial incentives while reducing energy use, water consumption, waste and emissions.

The program was launched by the Local First Arizona Foundation, the sister organization to nonprofit Local First Arizona (LFA) focused on creating strong, self-sufficient local economies, in partnership with the Tucson 2030 District, a public-private  dedicated to creating a high-efficiency building district in Tucson.

“When it comes down to it, the Local First Arizona Foundation is about creating a better economy that benefits all Arizonans,” said CJ Agbannawag, program manager for SCALE UP.

“We believe that it’s important that, when we’re talking about sustainable economies, we also need to be considering what it means to have a sustainable environment and a sustainable community,” he said. “And we realize that business ownership and the way we run a business has a big  and on your community.”

SCALE UP — Sustainable Communities Accessing Lending and Expertise Upon Performance — launched in 2018 as a pilot program for Tucson, funded by the Arizona Office of Grants and Federal Resources.

“We wanted to put a twist on the traditional type of energy efficiency workshops and water efficiency workshops to see if [businesses] can have better follow-through
 and actually make these bigger implementations and investments in their buildings so they can be more sustainable,” Agbannawag said.

In the , 11 locally-owned Tucson businesses went through a six-workshop series covering topics including energy efficiency, water conservation, waste reduction, transportation efficiency, benchmarking and , a volunteer effort by LFA to connect citizens with businesses and provide educational opportunities to the community.

“Each of the six workshops, we pulled in community experts, because there’s already a lot of these great resources out there in your community,” Agbannawag said. “We had slides that facilitators presented on with information that was aggregated from the community and also from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), and then we provided a workbook with quick lists of resources for all the different topics.”

The workshops provided checklists that businesses could use to benchmark (evaluate) their sustainability practices and track their progress. The program also offered an incentive package of resources, including energy rebates.

“There were actually some custom incentives as well,” Agbannawag said. “For example,  here in Tucson, they offered a custom rate for businesses. If they saved 10 percent on their efficiency, they could get a 10 percent discount on their corporate membership through the bike share program.”

The program’s purpose is to educate business owners, offer perspective on sustainability issues and create understanding about important questions: Where does the energy come from when you turn the lights on? Where does your water come from in Tucson?

“We wanted businesses to take ownership for these sustainability plans,” Agbannawag said. “There are a lot of auditing-type services out there where someone will come in and do an energy audit for your business, but then those plans just kind of sit on a shelf.”

SCALE UP encourages participants to create a sustainability plan and follow through on it, using resources and advice from industry professionals, government officials and utility experts. The program also lays out all the different incentives and rebates utilities offer, making it easier for business owners to sift through options.

“At the end of each topic, businesses had to benchmark their buildings and benchmark their business practices,” Agbannawag said. “Things like, ‘How many LED light bulbs do you have? How many gallons-per-flush are your toilets?’”

Businesses also had to benchmark their buildings using the  online tool, tracking the progress of energy efficiency improvements and comparing past and current usage.

“The pilot was just in Tucson, so it worked with Tucson Water, Tucson Electric Power and the City of Tucson and all the different municipalities down here to get the information specific to the area,” Agbannawag said. “But the plan is to eventually expand it to the rest of the state.”

The Arizona chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a national environmental health , was a major partner, he said.

“We also worked with the Pima Association of Governments, because they have a lot of great transportation resources in Pima County, including the folks that run our local bus system and streetcar system, from ,” Agbannawag said. “We also had other local nonprofits, like Watershed Management Group, which is a local water coalition here in town; they participated. Technicians for Sustainability was a partner as well; they’re a local solar installer. So we had a pretty broad range of partners that assisted in this program.”

Ultimately, the LFA Foundation hopes the program makes business owners more aware of what is going on in their environment and their community, as well as the impact their businesses can have, Agbannawag said.

“Secondly, we want to help these businesses to reduce their utility spending so they actually have more money freed up to invest in their building in other ways or to invest in their company in other ways, so that they can be more environmentally-friendly and have better economic performance,” he said.

Finally, participants were given exclusive access to a revolving loan fund from the nonprofit  (CIC) in Tucson, allowing businesses to take out low-interest loans for sustainability projects. The loans were matched up to 20 percent by a grant from a CIC investor.

The pilot program businesses saw “a pretty big spectrum of improvements across the board,” Agbannawag said.

For example, Pop-Cycle, a sustainability-focused bicycle shop, operates out of a historic building in Tucson that the company believed to be inherently inefficient, Agbannawag said. But after completing the SCALE UP program, Pop-Cycle saw the building’s lowest energy bill in 20 years, he said.

Right now, SCALE UP is in a planning period, hoping to receive assistance from the state and the City of Tucson to continue the program.

“We’re taking what we’ve learned, we’re identifying other partners, so that way when we do relaunch the program we can pretty quickly expand it,” Agbannawag said.

SCALE UP wants to take a cohort of businesses through the program every quarter — four cohorts per year — and complete at least two more sessions before expanding to Phoenix and elsewhere in the state, he said.

Climate change and water shortages will create new financial challenges for local businesses, and learning to be more sustainable is a smart way to prepare for that and offset the economic impact, Agbannawag said. Consumers should be aware, too, he said.

“At Local First, we tell people all the time to vote with your dollar, to support the local businesses, because they have the decision-making power here in our state, and we want to keep our money here to support our tax base in Arizona,” he said.

“If you’re a consumer that wants to be more sustainable, find the businesses — like the ones that went through SCALE UP — that are supporting green projects and sustainability projects, and support them as well, and let them know that they’re doing a good job.”

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Business owners can email CJ Agbannawag for more information about upcoming SCALE UP workshops or to add themselves to the contact list for future cohorts.

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