Standards & Compliance Briefing: Groups Lobby Against LEED; Household Refrigeration, EPA SmartWay

by | Jun 26, 2012

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Twenty trade groups from the plastics, vinyl and chemical industries, including the American Chemistry Council, The Vinyl Institute and the Resilient Floor Covering Institute, are lobbying to stop the General Services Administration from adopting the proposed LEED v4 construction standards. The groups say a chemical avoidance provision could eliminate the use of hundreds of products in construction projects. Those products could include heat-reflecting roofing membranes, PVC piping and foam insulation, writes The Washington Post.

Appliance manufacturer Whirlpool has become the first company in the marketplace to achieve certification of its products to AHAM 7001/CSA SPE 7001-12/UL 7001, Sustainability Standard for Household Refrigeration Appliances, UL Environment said. The standard – developed by ULE, the Association of Home Appliances Manufacturers, and the Canadian Standards Association – covers five categories for lifecycle-based environmental performance: materials, energy consumption during use, manufacturing and operations, product performance, and end-of-life.

TransFoil Systems trailer side skirts have earned EPA SmartWay verification for increasing fuel economy by at least 5 percent, and also have met CARB requirements. The aluminum composite skirts returned a fuel savings in excess of 10 percent. An independent third-party engineering firm conducted the product testing, writes FleetOwner.

The Kenworth T680 tractor model has received its EPA SmartWay designation. The tractors are intended for use with 53-ft. box van trailers that are also EPA SmartWay designated, and the combined tractor-trailer combination may reduce fuel consumption by as much as 18 percent at highway speeds, FleetOwner said.

Water monitoring technology company In-Situ has received EPA approval for its Rugged Dissolved Oxygen (RDO) sensors, used in its new Aqua TROLL 400 Multiparameter Instrument for groundwater and surface water monitoring. The company said that its RDO method has passed approved testing procedures under the Clean Water Act for measuring biochemical oxygen demand, carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand, and dissolved oxygen.

ASTM has proposed a new standard to aid nuclear plants in measuring the amount of the radionuclide carbon-14 in their gaseous effluents, as required by the NRC. The proposed standard, ASTM WK36397, Practice for Sampling of C-14 in Gaseous Effluents, is in development with the ASTM International Committee D19 on Water, and interested participants are invited to contribute, the organization said.

The AMCS said that its new ANSI/AMCA Standard 205-12 defines the energy efficiency classification for fans, which can be used by legislative or regulatory bodies for defining the energy efficiency requirements of fans used in specific applications. The standard only applies to the fan, including those having an impellar diameter of 125 mm or greater, operating with a shaft power of 750 W (1 hp), but it does not apply to the fan drive or the fan system.

The Responsible Jewellery Council said that three new members have achieved certification for ethical, human rights, social and environmental standards as established by the RJC’s member certification system. The companies are the Goldlake Group, Marjan Diamonds and Cambour SAS.

Precision technology manufacturer Nordson Corporation has earned LEED Silver certification for its 28,000 square-foot headquarters in Westlake, Ohio. The company said that the building is the first corporate headquarters in the greater Cleveland area to be awarded LEED certification. Features of the facility include energy optimized lighting, HVAC and water systems, a partial green roof planted with native vegetation, and reflective white roofing.

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