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Living Lab

When undergoing a transition to sustainability, should you try to invent the wheel or sit back and see how the market develops?

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The ArenA is presenting itself as a showroom for sustainable innovation. Businesses wanting to test their products in a world-class stadium, in front of a large audience, are welcome in our living lab.

Sustainability and innovation go hand in hand. Both are dynamic processes that require continuous effort. Just as sustainability is about more than just energy saving technologies, innovation does not always result in a complete and tangible product. Innovation is about finding new ways to organise everyday processes and bringing a critical and fresh perspective to existing patterns and methods. As always, the ArenA focuses on aspects within its own sphere of influence.

Acceleration Plan

How do we do what we do? Which new initiatives are required to maintain progress in our transition to sustainability? Those questions were the starting point of our Acceleration Plan. In this chapter, we share our search for answers to these questions.

Sustainability Dilemma

Opportunities and Challenges of the Transition to Sustainability

Completing a transition to sustainability successfully, is a long-term challenge. Things happen step by step, and at times two steps forward and one step back. Prof. Dr. Ing. Jan Rotmans, Professor of Transitions and Transition Management, analyses the situation at the ArenA.

What are the three most important conditions for a transition?
In what phase of its sustainable transition is the ArenA?
What are the ArenA's main challenges at this point?
How is the ArenA doing compared to other stadiums?

What are the three most important conditions for a transition?

In what phase of its sustainable transition is the ArenA?

What are the ArenA's main challenges at this point?

How is the ArenA doing compared to other stadiums?

Groenere grasmat door hergebruik graszoden

Acceleration Plan keeps ArenA on Sustainable Course

After a flying start in 2009, the ArenA’s sustainable transition risked losing momentum. It was time to renew the focus on the original objectives and to get results. To this end, the ArenA developed an Acceleration Plan.

“A transition process is never a smooth ride,” says Henk van Raan of the ArenA. “We gave ourselves five years to become the first CO2 neutral stadium in the Netherlands. Initially, these objectives drove our progress. But, at a certain point a gap appeared between what we wanted to do and what was actually achievable. Reasons include changes in laws and regulations, the interest of stakeholders and changing business models. This setback also affected the confidence of the organisation and partners. In summary, it was time to accelerate again.”

Limit External Influences

According to Van Raan, the main pitfall for an ambitious organisation is not to allow yourself to be influenced too much by other people’s ideas. “Everybody knows we are working on sustainability. As a result, we have a constant flow of ideas from people who want to help and be involved. Although this is very inspiring, contemplating each idea and testing its feasibility takes a lot of time and energy. As a result, it can get in the way of delivering real results.”

Tangible Results

The Amsterdam ArenA is using the Acceleration Plan to focus on a number of tangible results. One aspect of the plan is to purchase Dutch wind energy until 2016. To this end, we have signed a deal with energy company Nuon to ‘adopt’ a windmill. Van Raan: “Eventually, we want to generate our own energy. But in the meantime we get our energy as sustainably as possible, from a source within the Netherlands. We have also, in cooperation with BAM and Nuon, researched the feasibility of a study done previously on installing solar panels on the stadium roof and submitted an application for a subsidy. We are working at full speed to realise a smart grid, in cooperation with the Academic Medical Centre (AMC) that will allow us to use locally generated sustainable energy.”

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