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SUSTAINABILITY AT MONONA TERRACE
Sustainable Practice
Green Purchasing
Use of Renewable Energy
Recycling
Travel Green Wisconsin
Leonardo Academy's Cleaner and Greener Program
Monona Catering
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Sustainable Practice
Monona Terrace works hand in hand with the City of Madison as an involved supporter of
sustainable efforts and environmentally responsible operations. Monona Terrace is the first convention
center to receive silver level certification under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings (LEED - EB) rating system. LEED promotes a
whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and
environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources,
and indoor environmental quality.
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Green Purchasing
Monona Terrace has partnered with the City of Madison, in following with
the City's Natural Step initiative, to purchase environmentally friendly cleaning products at a bulk pricing rate.
Monona Terrace reaps the benefits of purchasing cleaning products based on 3.5 million square feet
(all City of Madison buildings) rather than 300,000 square feet (Monona Terrace alone). This encouraged
many city departments that were not green cleaning to begin using environmentally friendly products.
The Natural Step framework helps us think about the environmental, economic and social impacts
of City programs, projects and facilities. The Natural Step lays out the conditions and requirements that will
help the City make greater progress toward sustainability. For more information, contact Andrew Statz in the
Mayor's office, astatz@cityofmadison.com, 608-266-4611.
www.cityofmadison.com/mayor/Natural.html
www.cityofmadison.com/sustainable_design
In addition, Monona Terrace has a policy for making every attempt to purchase environmentally
preferable products for use within the facility. In 2006, approximately 30% of office supplies, building supplies,
office furnishings, and construction materials were environmentally preferable purchases.
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Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
Monona Terrace is proactive with energy consumption and management. With guidance from
Madison Gas & Electric, the facility purchased 350,000
kilowatt-hours of wind energy. This eliminated more than 775,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and
the need for 131 tons of coal. Monona Terrace plans to nearly triple green energy purchases in 2007.
When comparing our energy usage against other convention centers in comparable climactic zones, we
used 49% less energy on average. In fact, despite a 70% increase in operating revenues over the
past five years, baseline energy usage at Monona Terrace has not increased during that same timeframe.
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Recycling
Forty nine percent of the solid waste material generated at Monona
Terrace is currently recycled. We worked with Green Valley Disposal on a waste stream audit to analyze
how and what we were throwing away. The audit revealed areas where we were able to make changes in
how we disposed of our solid waste stream. For example, in the administrative offices, every office
has small trashcans and larger recycle containers. The change to single stream recycling
(where all recyclable materials can go into one container) has enabled clients using the facility to more
easily recycle while at the facility.
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Travel Green Wisconsin
Monona Terrace is certified as a Travel Green Wisconsin business,
which recognizes the commitment to continuously improve operations in order to reduce environmental
impact. A program of the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, member organizations evaluate their operations,
set goals and take specific actions toward environmental, social and economic sustainability. For more
information, please visit travelgreenwisconsin.com/participate/TGW_BROCHURE.pdf.
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Leonardo Academy's Cleaner and Greener Program
The Leonardo Academy is a Madison based organization that focuses on a wide
variety of sustainability issues. For clients that seek ways to reduce their footprint on the environment,
Monona Terrace offers the Leonardo Academy's Cleaner and Greener Program as an option. This program has
been offsetting emissions caused by events since 2001.
The Cleaner and Greener Program provided emission
reduction statistics to Monona Terrace, in preparation for LEED certification.
The study indicated an annual reduction of carbon dioxide building emissions by 5,471 tons as compared to
comparable convention centers in similar climactic zones.
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Monona Catering
Monona Catering, the in-house caterer for Monona Terrace, serves
approximately 510,666 people per year via events at Monona Terrace. Environmental practices are infused into
Monona Catering operations as well. Examples of this include the use of many
recyclables, including plastic cups at water stations and outdoor events, box lunch packaging,
copy paper and toner cartridges. In addition, leftover foods are donated to local food pantries,
many condiments are presented in bulk packaging, and custom organic menus are available.
www.mononaterrace.com/convention/catering.html
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