Sustainability
Over recent years, Wellington Regional Stadium has been committed to improving its sustainable operations, with a particular focus on carbon reduction. We are aligned with Greater Wellington Regional Council’s “Carbon Zero by 2030” goal, through waste minimisation, energy reduction, water reduction and supporting sustainable transport.
All waste is collected and sorted on site by a dedicated cleaning and sustainability team. We separate our waste into 15 different waste streams at Sky Stadium, ensuring we can divert as much waste from landfill as possible. In 2023 we have been able to divert more than 70% of event waste away from landfill, and at the recent Foo Fighters concert in January 2024, 90% of waste was diverted from landfill.
Our aim is to divert over 80% of stadium and event waste from landfill. To help us reach this goal, we use local recycling, compost, and resource recovery facilities to divert waste and disused items, such as signage, event waste, furniture, and scrap metal from ending up in the local landfill.
All food serveware from our public food and beverage outlets is compostable. These items are collected, along with food scraps, after every event and are sent to Capital Compost, where it is turned into premium compost for your garden.
Fans are encouraged to bring their own refillable water bottles to events which they can fill up at over 10 water-refill stations around the stadium.
We work closely with our hirers and stadium stakeholders to ensure their event delivery and marketing practices align with our own sustainability goals.
Prior to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ tournament, improvements were made to the existing floodlighting system. A total of 392 metal halide fittings were replaced with 404 LED light fittings. The new LED floodlighting system will provide better illumination and uniformity and improve floodlighting efficiency from 748kw to 606kw, with an estimated energy savings of 23%.
More than 6,000 energy efficient lights are on track to be installed at Sky Stadium after a grant application was partially approved by Greater Wellington in 2023.
The Wellington Regional Stadium Trust will receive $750,000 to partly fund the purchase and installation of 6,200 LED lights, an essential step in its Energy Transition Plan. The Stadium, which is part owned by the regional council, will fund the balance of the work. The LED lights are expected to save 61 tonnes of energy related carbon dioxide emissions each year.
Where possible we are moving away from cleaning parts of the venue with high volumes of water and are replacing this with enzyme cleaning products – specifically on the deep clean of the seating bowl concrete surface, roof cleaning and inner and outer plaza concrete.
Prior to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023, we were awarded a Green Star – Performance 3 Star rating (NZ v1.2) from the New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC) for our work in improving sustainable building operations.
We are one of only two venues in Aotearoa New Zealand to have achieved a 3 Green Star - Performance rating, no mean feat for a building that is nearly 25 years old, built at a time where sustainability was not a key focus of building requirements.
FillGood is a collective of partners helping events reduce their impact on the planet by providing New Zealand with simple and reusable serviceware solutions.
FillGood is a collaborative project to initiate a city-wide reusable serviceware system for food & drink at commercial & community-run events in Wellington. The project working group includes Wellington's major venues & event operators, Wellington City Council, community groups, event waste managers & reusable serviceware operators.
Kaibosh is New Zealand's first-ever food rescue organisation that supports people in need, ensuring that quality surplus food reaches those who are struggling rather than being needlessly discarded.
Our caterers, Delaware North, liaise with Kaibosh after stadium events to pass on extra food that is either surplus to requirements or would otherwise be destined for landfill.