Playing For Keeps: An Interview with Joe Fields, CEO TenCate Americas
Q: What does Playing for Keeps mean to you?
“Playing for Keeps” means that everything we do is really important, and has a lasting impact, whether it’s providing unlimited play to make healthier, more beautiful communities or being good stewards of the planet.
Q: How does turf fit into that?
Well, first and foremost, turf plays a huge role for communities and unlimiting play. Every turf field that we put in will allow at least four times as much play for people in that community or school than a natural grass field would. It’s actually a much safer surface where organizations or municipalities don’t have the resources to maintain a grass field.
And speaking of resources — it takes a lot to maintain a natural grass field, whether it’s water, fertilizer, or constant seeding. Pristine, game-ready grass fields don’t happen naturally. Turf doesn’t require any of those things, so it’s a huge savings in terms of natural resources, especially as water is becoming more and more scarce. Even mowing requires gasoline and emits carbon every time it’s done over the course of a natural field’s lifetime. There is a lot that goes into taking care of grass, and it can be hard on the local environment. So when we say “playing for keeps” we mean we’re providing opportunities to keep play accessible and solutions for keeping our environment healthy and beautiful.
Q: Beyond your products, what are some ways that TenCate as a company embodies the Playing for Keeps sentiment?
TenCate puts sustainability at the forefront of everything we do, every product that we develop, and even partnerships we engage in. So when we’re looking at products we make now, we want to make them in a circular way — and even products that have been in the ground or made by others — we want to be able to recycle those. And we’ve been successful at that.
We’re really proud of our partnerships with advanced recyclers, Turf Recycling Solutions. We now can take any artificial turf field that’s coming out of the ground at the end of its life and recycle it, turning it back into its foundational building blocks so that it can become a new product.
So, for the company, “Playing for Keeps” also means finding a way to keep materials from our industry in play, and out of the landfill by leveraging partnerships and contributing to a circular economy.
