Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle is fully electric and the world’s first International Living Future Institute Zero Carbon Certified arena, but creating a new arena wasn’t just about reducing emissions. Arenas also tend to produce enormous amounts of waste. So, the arena team embarked on a dual goal: reduce and credibly offset emissions from the arena’s events and construction while designing new systems to solve the waste issue. Those targets gave way to ingenuity. Climate Pledge Arena collects rainwater from its sloped roof—designed for the Seattle World’s Fair—and transforms it into ice for the Seattle Kraken NHL team’s home games. Any product bought within the building comes in either recyclable or compostable packaging, which has allowed the arena to get rid of most single-use plastics, with a plan to phase them all out. Sixty percent of food ingredients used in the arena come from within 300 miles. And by bringing all sorting in-house, the arena ensures that no unnecessary waste gets sent to landfill.

The arena’s efforts have paid off. In 2023, it became the world’s first functionally zero-waste sports arena and provided other large buildings with a roadmap for how to follow in their footsteps.