GP PRO Showcases Circular Venue Playbook for Waste Reduction, Sustainability, and Operational Resilience at 2026 Green Sports Alliance Summit
PR Newswire
ATLANTA, April 30, 2026
- Industry leaders from Lumen Field, Oracle Park, and Progressive Field to participate in panel about data-driven innovation turning zero-waste goals into reality
- KOLO Smart Monitoring System delivers real-time operational intelligence while empowering teams to be more proactive in closing the loop on waste
- GP Recycling is uniquely positioned to help venues optimize materials recovery and landfill diversion as part of a unified sustainability ecosystem
ATLANTA, April 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — GP PRO, a division of Georgia-Pacific and leading innovator of advanced dispensing and smart monitoring solutions, is joining sustainability trailblazers from Lumen Field, Oracle Park, and Progressive Field at this year’s Green Sports Alliance (GSA) Summit, being held May 5-7 at the Huntington Convention Center in Cleveland. As a Gold sponsor of this year’s GSA Summit, one of the largest and most influential gatherings of sports and sustainability, GP PRO will showcase how its data-driven innovation, the Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled KOLO® Smart Monitoring System, is helping venues turn zero-waste goals into measurable business outcomes. GP PRO also will lead a main-stage panel discussion on Thursday, May 7, 9:35-9:55AM, entitled “Smart Venues are Closing the Sustainability Loop.”
“Resilience in sports operations requires building a foundation of data that empowers teams to be more proactive and productive,” said John Strom, vice president and general manager, Innovation at GP PRO. “By using KOLO Smart Monitoring to help reduce source waste, the visionaries at Lumen Field, Oracle Park, and Progressive Field are creating more sustainable, circular playbooks, enabling them to win the ‘waste game’ at every stage of their journey while facilitating a more sustainable future for the sports industry.”
Measuring What Matters Most: 2025 KOLO Venue Sustainability Impact
During their respective 2025 sports seasons, these three iconic venues leveraged the KOLO System’s real-time alerts to drive significant gains in operational efficiency and sustainability while achieving up to 60% reductions in source waste. Key highlights include:
- Oracle Park, home of Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants, made significant progress in reducing tissue and towel waste, preventing 3,598 lbs. of emissions—equivalent to planting 41 trees.
- Progressive Field, home of Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians, led the group in overall towel-specific efficiency. The venue also will host the GSA Summit’s opening night reception.
- Lumen Field, home of National Football League’s Seattle Seahawks, Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders FC, and National Women’s Soccer League’s Seattle Reign FC, measured the lowest overall waste, bolstering their TRUE Gold Certification achievement in late 2025.
Lumen Field: Smart Blueprint for Closed-Loop Operations
Seattle’s Lumen Field remains relentless in its quest to ensure a resilient legacy for the Pacific Northwest and the sports industry at large. Central to this strategy is the deployment of the KOLO Smart Monitoring System across 1,100 tissue and towel dispensers—a move that has empowered frontline hospitality and custodial teams to move from guesswork to data-driven precision.
“We have seen a huge impact on our operations thanks to the KOLO System,” said Christy Briggs, sustainability manager, Lumen Field. “The technology itself, which has a low footprint and was installed in days, packs a big punch by saving thousands of rolls of paper to reduce our upstream waste by 75%.”
Looking ahead, Lumen Field is exploring how Georgia-Pacific Recycling (GP Recycling) could assist in direct-to-mill materials recovery, remove unnecessary and costly links from its supply chain, and ensure sorted materials have a verifiable second life. A subsidiary of Georgia-Pacific and leader in the recycling marketplace for more than 50 years, GP Recycling is one of the world’s largest buyers and sellers of recyclable paper, plastic, and metal. GP Recycling moves more than five million tons of recyclable materials annually, including providing more than two million tons of recycled cardboard and other wastepaper to the Georgia-Pacific mill system to make products people rely on every day.
“Resilience is being prepared for what the world will be in 10 years by having a strategy today about the materials you use and how to reduce, reuse and recover waste as part of closed-loop sustainability,” Briggs concluded. “Your success may look different from mine, but once the framework is in place, you will see recurring results that ultimately will make a difference.”
GSA Summit Technology Showcase and Panel Session
GP PRO will showcase the KOLO Smart Monitoring System at the GSA Summit. GP Recycling also will be on hand to describe its suite of services, which leverage traditional trading channels as well as its innovative online platform, hubbIT, to divert millions of tons of recyclable materials away from landfills and back into the economy each year.
Joining GP PRO’s John Strom for the May 7th panel, “Smart Venues are Closing the Sustainability Loop,” are Christy Briggs from Lumen Field, along with Alejandra Alvarez, senior manager, Maintenance Operations, San Francisco Giants/Oracle Park; and Rosalie Morrison, assistant director, Facility Operations, Cleveland Guardians/Progressive Field.
About GP PRO
Based in Atlanta, Georgia-Pacific and its subsidiaries are among the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of bath tissue, paper towels and napkins, tableware, paper-based packaging, office papers, cellulose and building products. The company operates approximately 150 facilities and employs approximately 30,000 people directly and creates nearly 80,000 jobs indirectly. GP PRO, a division of Georgia-Pacific, manufactures and sells well-known brands like enMotion®, Compact®, Angel Soft® Professional Series, Brawny®, Dixie®, Pacific Blue™, and the KOLO® Smart Monitoring System. GP PRO products meet restroom, foodservice, and break room needs for office buildings, healthcare, foodservice, high traffic, lodging, retail, and education facilities, plus a wide range of industrial and manufacturing facilities in North America. For more information, visit: gppro.com.
About Georgia-Pacific Recycling
Georgia-Pacific Recycling, a division of Georgia-Pacific and a leader in the recycling marketplace for more than 50 years, is one of the largest buyers and sellers of recyclable paper, plastic, and metal in the world. Georgia-Pacific Recycling is the sole source of recycled fiber for Georgia-Pacific’s mill system, which uses more than two million tons of recovered paper each year to make everyday products like Brawny® paper towels, and Dixie® cups and plates. By leveraging traditional trading channels as well as its online platform, hubbIT, Georgia-Pacific Recycling diverts more than five million tons of recycled waste from landfills each year. To learn more, visit www.gapacrecycling.com.
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SOURCE Georgia-Pacific


