Standards & Compliance Briefing: ISO 50001, LEED, BizNGO Group, CODE REDD

Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) has been ISO 50001-certified at its largest manufacturing site, in Wakefield, Great Britain. It is the first company in the global food and beverage industry to achieve the new standard in energy management practices, said CSR Europe. The energy management certification audit was conducted by SGS United Kingdom Ltd. The company is also investing approximately $47 million into a warehouse construction project at the site and expects to save approximately 500,000 road miles per year in travel to external storage facilities.

Amonix Inc., designer and manufacturer of utility-scale concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar power systems, has achieved LEED gold certification at its headquarters in Seal Beach, Calif., and its production facility in North Las Vegas, Nevada. As part of the LEED certification, eight Amonix CPV solar systems will supply 100 percent of the North Las Vegas facility’s energy needs, or approximately 2,500 MWh per year. The Seal Beach facility earned the maximum score for its lighting system designs with the installation of tubular “daylighting” devices to bring natural light into dark spaces.

Western Kentucky University has its first LEED gold certified facility, the Gary A. Ransdell Hall, a 120,000-square-foot, $35 million building. The project including features such as access to public transportation, low-flow plumbing fixtures, water efficient landscaping, reflective coating on parking lots, material reuse and use of regional materials, and green cleaning practices has served a design pilot for future construction on the campus. The university’s next project, a $9 million music hall with an expected spring 2012 completion date, is designed to be LEED silver.

The BizNGO Group has released two frameworks to help companies choose more sustainable plastics and safer chemicals for their products: The Principles for Sustainable Plastics, and Chemical Alternatives Assessment Protocol. Both were co-developed by companies and environmental health advocacy groups in the BizNGO Group network. The Chemicals Alternatives Assessment Protocol is a tool that helps businesses identify safer substitutions to toxic chemicals. The Principles for Sustainable Plastics outlines what makes a plastic “sustainable.”

Wildlife Works has launched the CODE REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) carbon offsets program, an action campaign to help the world’s wild forests using private sector financing within the voluntary carbon market. The campaign aims to create an easy and compelling way for corporations to invest in carbon offsets with funding directed to proven, high-quality forest protection projects.

ASTM International is developing a new standard that aims to simplify the process of photovoltaic system acceptance and help reduce the cost associated with negotiating a PV system purchase. ASTM WK22009, Test Method for Reporting Photovoltaic Non-Concentrator System Performance will assist the PV system buyer in determining whether a PV system’s power production capacity meet agreed-upon specifications. The test can also be run periodically in a PV system’s life to track changes in the performance of the PV system over time.

Electronics Weekly has published a “30 second guide to RoHS2” detailing the July 2011 EU law that governs all electrical and electronic equipment. The guide includes the scheduled duration for product exemptions, current equipment exclusions, the timeline for additional regulations and how RoHS2 will align with other EU directives.