Standards & Compliance Briefing: LEED for Healthcare, ISO 14001, Vapor Intrusion

Group Health Cooperative’s medical office building in Puyallup, Wash., has become the first building in the nation to win LEED for Healthcare certification, USGBC says. The facility achieved Gold and earned several credits new to LEED, including connection to the natural world (providing landscaped areas for patients and visitors), reduced potable water use for cooling medical equipment, use of least-polluting combustion equipment, and minimization of persistent bioaccumulative toxins.

Volkswagen‘s test center in Oxnard, Calif., has achieved LEED certification, the automaker said. The facility, owned by Quattro-Del Norte, features a 1,750-panel solar array and efficiency features that are together expected to cut energy costs by 35 percent. 

The non-profit Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale, Penn., announced that its Moorhead Environmental Complex has achieved LEED Platinum. The complex houses offices and also serves as a teaching tool, demonstrating wetland treatment of wastewater, rainwater capture, geothermal heating and cooling, photovoltaic panels, and landscaping that promotes infiltration, the organization says.

UK-based Enviro Technology Services, a global supplier of environmental monitoring equipment, has achieved ISO 14001 environmental management system certification, alongside BS OHAS 18001 health and safety management accreditation, the company said. The British Standards Institution awarded both certificates.

A proposed ASTM International standard, ASTM WK40037, Guide for Determining Concentration Values from Groundwater, Air and Soil Gas Using Adsorbent-Based, Passive Samplers, addresses the measurement of vapor intrusion – the migration of gas-phase compounds into buildings from underlying soil. The standard will help avoid health problems associated with vapor intrusion, ASTM says.

ASTM has also released a new standard, D7830, Test Method for In-Place Determination of Density and Water Content of Soil Using an Electromagnetic Soil Density Gauge. The standard covers procedures for determining in-place properties of non-frozen, unbound soil and soil aggregate mixtures by measuring electromagnetic impedance of compacted soil using electrical, non-nuclear devices.

The Brazilian Association of Technical Standards has published ABNT NBR 16156:2013, Electrical and Electronic Equipment Waste-Requirements for reverse manufacturing activity. The standard covers environmental, health and safety impacts, traceability of waste until its disposal, protection of manufacturers’ trademarks and data storage.

Advantageous Systems (ADS) has received final NSF/ANSI Standard 61 Certification for its ADS Arsenic Absorbent Filter Water Treatment Technology. The patent-pending technology can remove arsenic selectively from potable water and embed it in a solid matrix without producing sludge or needing backwashes, ADS says.

Bourbon maker Jim Beam says it is poised to receive LEED Gold certification at its new visitors’ center, The Jim Beam American Stillhouse, in Clermont, Ky. Construction used 25 percent recycled materials and diverted 79 percent of construction waste from landfills.