Sustainability: The Garden Path

Since the Colorado Rockies debuted their 600-square-foot vegetable garden at Coors Field in 2013, similar projects have sprouted throughout the major leagues, as sports organizations seek new ways to make their operations more environmentally sustainable. Although there is no industry template to follow, most clubs use the gardens to source food for concession stands and in-venue restaurants and serve as a teaching tool to inform the public about the importance of their local environment. The areas also provide teams with public-facing sponsor inventory, such as the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Vertical Urban Garden presented by UnitedHealthcare and the Pittsburgh Pirates’ PNC Park Urban Garden Powered by Duquesne Light.

In Denver, the Rockies’ baseball diamond-shaped creation has generated more than 5,000 pounds of organic food — cucumbers, carrots, char, edible flowers, purple bell peppers (a nod to the club’s color scheme), beans and squash — during its decade of existence.

The Boston Red Sox’s Fenway Farms, a two-rooftop, 5,000-square-feet operation, is baseball’s largest and most productive garden, annually generating nearly 6,000 pounds of herbs, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, broccoli, eggplant, carrots and zucchini.

Although MLB ballparks make up the majority of big league gardens, the 6,500-square-foot space at Levi’s Stadium is the largest in sports. 

Not every green space is designed to feed human fans. The Baltimore Orioles and the Maryland Stadium Authority teamed up with the National Wildlife Federation to build the Oriole Garden at Camden Yards featuring native plants that attract orioles, butterflies and other local birds and pollinators.