The 55-story Wachovia Financial Tower in Miami has earned LEED Gold certification, while the Martin Horn office building in Madison, Va., also has achieved LEED certification.
The Wachovia Financial Tower is the tallest office building in downtown Miami, and one of the top-10 office towers in America, as judged by the Wall Street Journal, according to a press release.
The tower is also renovating its 30,000 square foot outdoor urban park.
The building recycles 100 percent of recoverable materials, according to its environmental Web page. Rainwater runoff is channeled into six 5,000 gallon retention tanks to prevent seepage into the Miami River and Biscayne Bay.
The building received an Energy Star rating in 2000.
The Martin Horn building is the first in Central Virginia to attain LEED status, reports the Daily Progress.
In other green building news, California recently approved the most stringent, environmentally-friendly building code in the United States that will apply to new commercial buildings, hospitals, schools, shopping malls and homes.
The code, dubbed CAL Green, requires builders to install plumbing that cuts indoor water use, divert 50 percent of construction waste from landfills to recycling, use low-pollutant materials, and install separate water meters for different uses in nonresidential buildings.
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