Throughout Yulman Stadium in New Orleans, every garbage can is paired with a matching recycling bin. In addition, there are water efficient restrooms, which reduces water usage by 39 percent.

Tulane Athletics is no exception to the green movement gaining momentum across the nation. Yulman Stadium in New Orleans became the eighth and newest university building to receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification by the U.S. Green Building Council on Aug. 13.

Tulane has met a core list of LEED standards, ranging from design and construction to operation and maintenance. Every step of the process in the LEED certification must be documented, with water and electricity data sharing for five years after the certification.

"LEED is a list of about 60 things that we can do to reduce the environmental impact and to make the building more healthy and comfortable for the people who are occupants," director of environmental affairs Elizabeth Davey said. "Our approach to LEED has been practical, emphasizing energy efficiency, water conservation and indoor air quality. Then we take other actions on the list that make sense for the project."

Completing more tasks on the LEED list leads to higher certification levels. Yulman Stadium is currently at silver accreditation, receiving up to 59 points from the criteria.

"A lot of the building materials were made in our region and have a high recycled content. For LEED, this is tracked by the amount spent on regional materials and recycled materials," Davy said. "Of the total cost of materials, 48 percent was spent on materials produced in our region and 39 percent was spent on materials made from recycled content."

Yulman Stadium also has an environmentally friendly field without losing any of the quality of its athletic facility. Yulman has the same field as the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, with the one remarkable difference being what is underneath.

At Yulman, there is gravel below the field, not concrete. The benefit of gravel rather than concrete is that water is able to drain through the gravel into a rainstore system. This underground rainwater storage system is located under the practice field next to the stadium.