NHL Rinks go for LEED Green Building certifications

This week, an article on NHL.com announced that Philips Arena, home to the Atlanta Thrashers and NBA Atlanta Hawks has achieved the most prominent green building certification in North America: LEED for Existing Building: Operations and Maintenance (LEED-EB: O&M) certification.  This is the first Arena in the US to have achieved LEED!  There are lots of LEED projects out there, but to get LEED for Arenas are not easy!  Basically, in order to get LEED, the project needs to get as many “environment points” as possible.  The more the project gets, the higher the LEED certification the project can get (Certified, Silver, Gold, Platinum).  And these environmental points were originally developed for office buildings, therefore not exactly suitable for arenas.  What is more impressive for the Philips Arena is that it got LEED EB (as in exiting building), which has always been difficult/expensive to get.  Just imagine retrofitting your home to be more energy efficient - it’s harder than building a new one with “green” in mind!  I’d like to know some more details about this project, and will update when I find some.

How about some other LEED arena projects?

• K-Rock Centre in Kingston, Ontario - this is an arena for the Kingston Frontenacs of the  Ontario Hockey League, part of the major junior league in Canada.  It is built to LEED Silver standard and is in the process of getting LEED certification.  I actually ran a little tour on this arena when I used to live there - the tour will be offered again in the next GreenUP! on April 19, 2009.  You should go take a look!
• AmericanAirline Arena in Miami - this arena, home for the Miami Heat also god LEED EB:O&M on April 6, 2009, same day as the Philips Arena.
• Penguins’ new arena seeks gold LEED status - still under construction, the Consol Energy Arena is seeking to get LEED gold!  They claim that they’ll be the first arena in US to get LEED NC.

Wal-Mart Canada’s First Environmental Demonstration Store

Wal-mart Canada opens its first Environmental Demonstration Store in Burlington Ontario in 2009.

These are some highlighted features:

• demonstration of geothermal heating and cooling technology in a large-scale Canadian retail operation – facilitated by 15 km of piping buried under parking lot ->> i love geothermal heat pumps…  i have one before moving back to Vancouver!  see more here. It’s pretty crazy to have 15km of pipes.  i’ll do a little RETScreen study on it, i’m pretty sure even with this much piping there is not enough heating/cooling for the entire store… 
• Daylight harvesting system using skylights to refract daylight throughout the store; light sensors monitor the amount of natural light available and rise, dim or turn off lighting as needed 
• bought green power from Bullfrog Power ->> yes, buy our selves to sustainability!
• In-floor radiant heating and cooling system circulates water to transfer heat and cold instead of air vents
• Environmentally preferable CO2 refrigeration system ->> i wonder what is Wal-mart’s cooling/heating load!
• Heat from refrigeration system captured and reused to heat store
• Energy-saving motion-activated LED lights in refrigerator and freezer cases reduces energy use ->> these are AWESOME…  best for kids running across the whole freezer case hall and light everything up!
• Low-wattage parking lot lights as well as LED external signs reduce energy use
• White roof membrane deflects sunlight by an estimated 85 per cent  ->> this supposely reduce heat island effect…  and lowers cooling cost!
• Increased insulation on the roof reduces heat and cooling loss

There are some more features that you can see in this article.  It looks like it’s build to LEED standard by reading these features…. There is no LEED for retail (yet) and maybe that’s why they have not decided to go for LEED… who knows.  it also costs money to be LEED certified!