Pepsi Center makes its environment better

Denver's 19,000-seat Pepsi Center is making an effort to help the environment. They added giant air circulating fans in the roof which should help air conditioning circulation and even added a new Zamboni that cleans the hockey rink's ice.

"There's a significant challenge in retrofitting a building this large, but these are the right things to do for the environment," Kroenke Sports vice president of venue operations Dave Jolette said. "Even though this building is less than a decade old, it needed some large scale modifications to get things started."

The Pepsi Center is home to NBA Denver Nuggets, NHL Colorado Avalanche, NLL Colorado Mammoth and AFL Colorado Crush. The arena hosts more than 200 sporting events and concerts a year and is the site of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

The arena's engineering crew found ways to conserve energy, recycle materials and reduce the building's carbon footprint. Pepsi Center became the first sports venue to join the Environmental Protection Agency's "Climate Leaders" program, an industry-government partnership that works to inventory and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a company-wide basis to develop comprehensive climate change strategies.

Alas, if only they could do something about the hot air, sure to be filling the arena at the presidental convention.