One of the longest—and greenest—red carpets ever created in the United States will stretch across 18 blocks of Manhattan as a lead-up to the 2008 MLB All-Star Game with its All-Star Game Red Carpet Parade presented by Chevy on July 15th at 1:00 PM ET. Covering 95,000 square feet along Sixth Avenue, the eco-friendly carpet will be graced by baseball legends like Hank Aaron, Yogi Berra, and Willie Mays as they parade through New York City along with the American League and National League All-Stars.

The ‘green’ carpet, created by Bentley Prince Street is made from 100% recycled fiber content and 100% of the electricity used to produce the carpet is made renewable through an on-site solar array and the purchase of Green-e certified renewable energy certificates. It will travel up Sixth Avenue from the corner of Sixth Avenue and 40th Street to the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 58th Street.

The carpet is part of a series of initiatives MLB has implemented in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council to make the 2008 MLB All-Star Game the greenest event in MLB’s history. MLB and NRDC have partnered together since 2005 on a league-wide environmental initiative, both for League events and also to help individual Clubs build on the good environmental work they have been doing for years.

MLB’s ‘green’ carpet was produced at Bentley Prince Street’s California manufacturing facility, which is the first in the country to receive a silver rating from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings. The carpet is also designated as an environmentally preferable product, certified as Sustainable Choice Gold by Scientific Certification Systems.

Through Bentley Prince Street’s sustainable manufacturing processes, MLB avoided the use of 6,300 pounds of petroleum-based fiber and 162,000 gallons of water during production. In addition, the climate impact of the carpet has been offset, from the purchase of 480,000 lbs of verified emissions reduction credits. Bentley Prince Street purchases offsets from several aggregators including Native Energy, Blue Source and 3 Degrees.

Along with the environmentally-friendly red carpet, MLB has called on Chevy, who will provide transportation for the players and their families on the red carpet in FlexFuel Chevy Silverados. In addition, MLB has implemented a series of measures to limit the game’s carbon emissions, which include using post-consumer recycled content in its paper products and bio-based products, investing in renewable energy offsets, promoting recycling through NRDC “Green Teams” that will be at All-Star events and shuttling fans to certain events via hybrid buses.