Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) has certified its first tile manufacturers to the flooring industry's new Green Squared certification standard. Certifications were awarded to tile manufactured by Crossville Inc., Interceramic Inc., and Metropolitan Ceramics by Ironrock. SCS said it is among the first third-party certifiers accredited by the Tile Council of North America. SCS has been accredited to certify farmed seafood processors, distributors and other participants to the supply chain of custody Aquaculture Stewardship Council standard. The ASC ecolabel is applicable to eight major farmed species groups, with criteria to assure responsible aquaculture farming practices, SCS said.
ASTM International has launched a new program — Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity. With the new program, product test results will be registered with ASTM, facilitating the ability to provide documentation to customers. Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity conforms to the requirements of ISO/IEC 17050-1 and 17050-2 Conformity Assessment-Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity, ASTM said.
Panolam Industries' Huntsville, Ontario, facility has earned the Composite Panel Association's Eco-Certified Composite sustainability standard for particleboard production. The CPA also verified that Panolam has fulfilled CARB requirements on formaldehyde emissions from composite wood products, Panolam said.
The U.K. Environment Agency has released new guidance to prevent business WEEE being wrongly classified as household WEEE. Electrical items that could meet a "natural" consideration of private household WEEE – domestic refrigerators, tea kettles, and desktop computers – can be classified as such, but the quantity of the waste will also be factored, Let's Recycle said.
The city of El Cerrito, Calif.'s Recycling and Environmental Resource Center, which handles conventional and hard-to-recycle items, is under review for LEED Platinum certification. The Center has 10 kW of on-site solar power, an 11,000 gallon rainwater collection tank and bioswales in its landscaping, the center said.
Northern Illinois Food Bank's West Suburban Center in Geneva, Ill., is the first new-construction food bank in the country to receive LEED Gold certification. The building achieved an energy savings of about 25 to 30 percent over a similar traditional structure, and allowed the organization to supply 300,000 additional meals in 2011, the food bank said.
The School of Medicine Research Building at the University of California, Riverside has received LEED Gold certification. The 58,000-square-foot building was originally designed to meet silver requirements, but campus staff reviewed plans and found points that hadn’t been applied for, such as restoring habitat, maximizing open space, alternative transportation parking, and efforts to reduce the heat island effect, UCR said.
