Honda Canada's HQ earns Gold LEED certification
Honda Canada announced it has received LEED Canada - Gold green-building certification from the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) for its new headquarters office in Markham, Ontario.
Completed in May 2010, the facility is Honda’s eleventh LEED-certified building in North America making it tops among auto manufacturers on the continent in the terms of green buildings.
“Honda’s environmental vision is to help preserve the global environment for generations to come, and includes broad-based efforts to minimize our company’s environmental footprint,” said Jerry Chenkin, executive vice president, Honda Canada Inc.
“Achieving LEED-Gold certification for our facility in Markham demonstrates our commitment to this vision.”
The four-story, 138,000-sq.-ft. office building is one of three buildings on Honda Canada’s 54-acre campus. The other two buildings include a Parts Distribution Centre and Technical Building. The campus is now home to about 500 Honda Canada associates and represents an investment of nearly $100 million (land and buildings only).
During construction of the campus, the company said it used locally sourced materials where possible, and diverted construction material from landfills, recycling or reusing 75 per cent of total construction materials.
By incorporating energy-saving features such as north-south building orientation and a heat-reflective white roof, Honda Canada’s head office uses 33 per cent less energy than that of a traditional office building of the same size. Through innovative site water management, potable water consumption in the facility has been reduced by 44 per cent compared to the LEED baseline and rainwater is collected and stored for use in the campus’ irrigation system.
Additional green building features of the campus include an energy-efficient underfloor air distribution system and a parking lot outfitted with bio-filters that filter rainwater before it is released into the public sewer system.
Canadian AutoWorld staff personally toured the facility in September so check out the next issue of the magazine for more information on Honda’s headquarters.
