Standards & Compliance Briefing: Green Globes, Stormwater, NASA

The Green Building Initiative has released what it calls the most significant upgrade to the Green Globes for New Construction program since its US launch in 2006.  Green Globes NC is now based on an ANSI standard, ANSI/GBI 01-2010: Green Building Assessment Protocol for Commercial Buildings, and the GBI says its program also received major enhancements to all seven assessment areas.

The American Society of Plumbing Engineers (ASPE) and the American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association (ARCSA) are looking at developing an American National Standard on stormwater harvesting, WaterWorld reports. The standard would establish requirements for designing post-construction alternative stormwater systems, including treatment and source control methods, site design parameters and maintenance. The partners already developed ARCSA/ASPE 63, a rainwater catchment system standard that will be submitted for ANSI approval later this year.

Several environmental and workers’ rights group condemned Swedish certification organization TCO Development for awarding its first Sustainability Certification to Samsung’s Galaxy S4 Smartphone, because of reports of widespread leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma among Samsung workers in Korea. A study in the International Journal of Occupation and Environmental Health found insufficient evidence that in-plant exposure caused the diseases, but said workers should be protected from potential exposures immediately.

NASA’s Sustainability Base, at its Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., received LEED Platinum certification. The 50,000 sq foot building received over 80 out of 100 points.

International Paper has achieved Forest Stewardship Council accreditation for its HP Home and Office and HP Office brands, within its HP Everyday Papers range. The range also has EU Eco-label certification.

Merritt Properties’ Meadowridge 95 Building III, in Howard County, Md., has achieved LEED Platinum certification. The two-story, 68,470-square-foot building features underfloor air distribution, and water-efficient restroom fixtures and drought-tolerant landscaping cut municipal water use by about 44 percent.

Eurofins Air Toxics has achieved accreditation to ISO 17025, a laboratory competence standard, for its new environmental chamber emissions testing facility in Folsom, Calif. Environmental chambers are used to test and measure the level of volatile organic compounds in materials and products.