Standards & Compliance Briefing: ISO 20121, LEED, Biodiesel

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Manchester United football club announced that it has earned the new ISO 20121 certification for sustainability in event management, its second international standard in environmental management this year. The club had already achieved the British standard in this field – BS8901. In February, United also became the first football club in England to earn its ISO 14001 certification.

LD Products announced that its 110,000-square foot Long Beach, Calif., headquarters has achieved LEED Platinum certification under 2009 V3 regulations, making it the first new-construction commercial building to meet the USGBC's more stringent standard at the platinum level. The building is projected to use 47 percent less electricity and 42 percent less potable water than a similarly sized facility.

The USGBC said that the total footprint of commercial projects certified under its LEED green building program has surpassed two billion square feet, and globally, an additional seven billion square feet is in the process of certification. The council said that the development of certified facilities contributes $554 billion to the US economy annually and has helped support 7.9 million jobs.

Ingersoll Rand's four-story, 195,000-square-foot Ingersoll Reuben Trane Building in La Crosse, Wis., has earned two Green Globes from the Green Building Initiative. Among the efficiency projects at the facility, the installation of hand dryers is saving $30,000 in paper towel purchases and keeps nine tons of paper from the waste stream annually, and energy-efficient retrofits of parking lot lighting are saving $6,000 annually, the company said.

The Owen-Ames-Kimball Co. construction team has earned LEED Platinum for Homes certification for construction of the Coconut Cove Apartments in Cape Coral, a property of the Southwest Florida Affordable Housing Choice Foundation Inc. The project is one of three recognized by the U. S. Green Building Council in its announcement of 20,000 LEED for Homes certifications, the company said.

The National Biodiesel Board announced that ASTM D6751, the standard for pure biodiesel (B100) prior to blending, was modified to create a new voluntary No. 1-B grade. The new grade provides more stringent controls for minor components in raw materials, such as vegetable oils and animal fats. The specifications were refined to meet the needs of customers with Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel and new diesel engine and after-treatment technology, and will be known as No. 2-B grade in D6751, the board said.

Members of the China Association for Standardization and ANSI met in Beijing to discuss new energy standardization efforts taking place -- specifically with electric vehicles. ANSI presented its Standardization Roadmap for Electric Vehicles, Version 1.0, released in April 2012, while the China Automotive Technology & Research Center presented its plans for electric vehicle standardization, ANSI said.

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