...VW recently announced that its Chattanooga plant was awarded LEED Platinum certification. Building or retrofitting a building to get LEED status isn't all that difficult, if you're just aiming for a lower-level award. To reach the highest level, Platinum, you need to put in a fair bit of work to score enough points (at least 80) on the United States Green Building Council's (USGBC) rating system. This system (detailed in this PDF) is incredibly complicated. For example, a company can get one point for limiting "disruption and pollution of natural water flows by managing stormwater runoff" or two points for reducing "ozone depletion and support[ing] early compliance with the Montreal Protocol while minimizing direct contributions to climate change." There are 117 pages of this stuff. While planning the plant, Volkwagen's team combed through them to find ways to make sure the plant would be up to snuff.
Continue reading Volkswagen justifiably proud of LEED Platinum status in Chattanooga
