Scoring sustainability goals

The partnership with Schneider stretches back to long before the doors were opened in 2019. The stadium is at the heart of a huge regeneration of the wider area.

“It’s central to the local identity and local economy,” said Ben Selkirk, head of stadium facilities at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, ‘as the club has been since it was founded by a group of Victorian school boys back in 1882.

Moving far beyond the Men’s First Team activities, the stadium acts as a year-round cultural asset that hosts amongst other things music concerts and NFL games. It also houses an electric karting track and a microbrewery. A recent report from Ernst and Young on the socioeconomic impact of the Club’s activities showed that it contributed almost £900m to the economy, generating £344m gross added value (compared to £120m in 2015). It also supports around 3700 jobs in the tri-borough area.

“The impact of this football club stretches far beyond the team’s performance in the Premier League, and so does its influence,” said Selkirk. “And of course, sustainability is part of our DNA.”

“We believe that partnership and collaboration really is the key to making an impact when it comes to our sustainability and no matter how big your organisation is you cannot go it alone. With Schneider Electric we are able to be a world leader in how venues and sports clubs like ours approach sustainability and use our influence to help power the global drive for sustainability.”

Emissions responsibility

On a practical level, 24/7 monitoring by Schneider helps to create reports on measurables such as power usage, and has proved a valuable source of expertise in achieving Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions as the Club takes responsibility for emissions through its supply chains, even extending to factors such as how fans travel to the stadium.

“We are incredibly proud to have been named the Premier League’s greenest club for four consecutive years by the UN-backed Sport Positive Summit, but our journey doesn’t end here,” said Selkirk. “We remain committed to pushing the boundaries of what is possible, not just for Spurs but for the sports industry as a whole.”

Seeing the stadium from behind the scenes shows, from a customer point of view, how to use the technologies and support structure put in place by Schneider to take a business forward and achieve those all-important sustainability goals.

“This is a great example of how we’ve worked with a customer with a new facility, on a blank sheet of paper, with a vision of building a world-class facility, the world’s most sustainable stadium,” said Chris Haines, integration director for services in the UK and Ireland at Schneider Electric.

Much of what Schneider has learnt from the partnership with Tottenham and the journey to get where the stadium project is today has been instrumental to developing the company’s recently launched EcoCare concept – a membership scheme which is designed to help participants minimise downtime, maximise OEE and safety, and increase sustainability.

“A lot of our customers, however, are not in the enviable position of starting with a blank sheet of paper,” acknowledged Haines. “So we also audited over 400 of our customers to find out what their key challenges were and how life looked from their point of view when they are managing, say 20, 30, 40-year-old infrastructure and trying to do the same things as Tottenham have done.”

This research found that in general, the major aims tend to be the same; from university campuses to pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, businesses are looking at sustainability goals, keeping costs under control while maintaining continuities, and managing the current scarcity of skills. This is where, asserted Haines, EcoCare can help develop and transform businesses.

Ongoing relationships

Unlike a conventional contract, which essentially supports a customer at a point in time, EcoCare membership is about an ongoing relationship.

“What we have found Tottenham, and with other customers, is that we are really looking at a transformation,” said Haines “We are looking to make them more digital, more efficient, more resistant, more sustainable. And it’s about benchmarking where they are today, and then supporting them through that transformation.”

So what makes EcoCare unique in the marketplace? The concept has a number of core features, which while important are not individually unique – but when put together the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, asserted Haines. For example, AI engines are built into the EcoCare offering so connected assets are monitored by Schneider’s Connected Services Hubs and any potential issues or failures can be predicted in advance. The connectivity is enabled by innovative sensor technology, which can be retrofitted to existing and new infrastructure.

“Ultimately what we are trying to do is be flexible,” said Haines. “We are trying to adapt to the changing needs of our customers.

“We can cover just about every part of a facility; unlike some of our competition, we can cover power, automation, buildings, control, and assets.”

Key to what Schneider offers through EcoCare membership is ‘connect and consult’. The consulting element helps to establish a customer’s current situation, which is particularly pertinent where legacy assets and equipment need to be taken into consideration. This can cover identifying which assets are critical, where they are. and whether they are connected, along with further considerations such as upgradability, approaching end-of-life, and obsolescence.

“Using our consulting expertise, we then help customers build a plan and migrate with it,” said Haines. “So (EcoCare) membership helps support and reduce risks today, and then transforms into a future model which is much smarter, and much more connected, predicting failures before they happen.”

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