Green Options » LEED Gold

M&M’S® and MARS Going Green? New Solar Garden at Headquarters in New Jersey

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:13:04 +0000

Candy giant MARS, parent company of M&M’S®, DOVE®, MILKY WAY®, SNICKERS®, 3 MUSKETEERS®, and TWIX®, turned on a huge new solar array (a “solar garden”) at its headquarters in New Jersey today. No matter what you think of candy food like this, it is good to see such a company going solar. Popular with millions, billions perhaps, and about as mainstream as you can imagine, this is a good step for solar’s more widespread use across the country.

This facility is PSEG Solar Source’s first large-scale solar project. It is one of the largest solar projects in the state of New Jersey, which is already 2nd only to California in its amount of installed solar capacity. The MARS headquarters adjacent to the solar garden is the workplace of about 1,200 employees and is where M&M’S® Brand Chocolate Candies are manufactured.

Advanced Micro Device’s Lone Star Campus Receives LEED Gold Certification

Reenita Malhotra — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:15:43 +0000

Advanced Micro Devices - Lone Star Campus

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing and graphics markets, has been awarded gold certification under the U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ for its Lone Star campus in Austin, TX.

The Lone Star campus, which is home to AMD’s business operations and the Austin design engineering center, was designed and constructed by a diverse team of internationally recognized architects, engineers, ecologists and sustainability experts. The site development plan for the 58-acre, 870,000 square foot campus was based on three key tenets: limit site impact, protect water quality, and use innovative sustainable design. The award makes it the largest gold certified LEED® commercial building in Texas.

“From the inception of the Lone Star project, AMD sought to set the standard for responsible development, and this award recognizes AMD’s Austin campus as one of the greenest corporate facilities in the U.S.,” said Allyson Peerman, vice president, Public Affairs, AMD. “Earning LEED gold certification not only demonstrates AMD’s leadership in green building and green energy practices, but also highlights our commitment to our employees and the communities where we conduct business.

Key sustainable design elements include

Energy Use: Powered 100% by Austin Energy’s GreenChoice® electricity, which comes from clean, renewable energy sources such as wind power
Rainwater Collection: Designed with a 1.2 million gallon capacity rainwater collection system, which is designed to provide water for the buildings’ cooling towers and irrigation
Construction Materials: Incorporated more than 20% of construction materials based on recycled content, and with more than 20% of locally sourced construction materials
100% Native Landscaping: AMD partnered with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to salvage the native trees, shrubs and grasses within the footprint of the campus, and replant them following construction.

For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

Image Credit: AMD

Grand Rapids Has the First LEED Museum

Philip Proefrock — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:13:15 +0000

Grand Rapids, Michigan is one of the greenest cities in the country, at least if you go by the number of LEED certified buildings it has. And now it adds to its distinction with the first LEED Gold certified art museum in the country.

Grand Rapids is tied with Pittsburgh and Washington at #5 on a list of cities with the most LEED certified buildings, surpassing even cities such as Chicago, San Francisco, New York. Grand Rapids also has embraced renewable energy for the city. A strong regional commitment to green building and support from philanthropist Peter Wege (who serves on the board of the designerly office furniture manufacturer Steelcase as well as the Grand Rapids Art Museum’s board) has helped Grand Rapids But Grand Rapids’ latest claim to green fame is that it is now the home to the first new construction LEED-certified art museum in the country.

Cheers to Biodynamic Wine

Keith Rockmael — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:11:46 +0000

Last week as we overnighted in the LEED Gold Gaia Hotel in American Valley, we thought that we should take advantage of what everyone else in the region does – wine tasting. But we figured to be a little different. We hit a few wineries of varying organic, green, sustainable qualities and found a few surprises. First, get it out your head to tie “sustainability” to traditional wine making. As Winemaker Steven Canter at Quivira mentions, “There’s nothing sustainable about bottling wine in a glass bottle, corking the bottle, then shipping it all over the country.”

We scooted into the Madonna Winery tasting room during a quite Sunday afternoon. Located in the Carneros Region of Napa Valley, this family produced wine believes in organic farming, without the use of synthetic chemicals and is a proud member of CCOF (California Certified Organic Farmers). But when we asked the two servers if they served organic wine it was as if we asked for a tasting of Miller Lite. One gave this look of confusion and the other got a little condescending. Apparently, they do not make organic wine. According to the servers, that whole organic wine issue deals with the adding of sulfites and they think that serious winemakers have to use sulfites. Everyone gets to do their own due diligence as far as organic this or that but don’t make us feel like idiots for bringing up the question.