Honda Leads Automakers with 11 LEED-Certified Green Buildings

Honda has 11 LEED-certified green buildings in North America, the most of any automaker.

Honda Engineering North America’s Powertrain Division in Ohio, and Honda Canada’s new head office in Markham, Ontario, are the latest buildings to earn LEED-Gold certification.

"Our environmental efforts extend well beyond the products we make and include the facilities that support Honda’s manufacturing, R&D, sales and service operations across North America," says David Strelow, facilities manager for the Ohio plant. "This is part of our commitment to being good neighbors in the communities where we do business and good stewards of the environment and our finite natural resources."

For the Ohio expansion, Honda used locally sourced materials where possible and reused or recycled over 50% of the construction materials. The new facility has a cool roof, efficient lighting, advanced indoor-air-quality management systems, and now standard low-flow toilets and bathroom fixtures.

Honda Canada’s new 138,000-square-foot head office, one of three buildings on its 53-acre campus in Ontario, features an energy efficient underfloor air-distribution system, a cool roof, on-site storm water management and other innovative water systems that reduce water consumption 44%. They also used locally sourced materials for construction and reused or recycled 75% of total construction materials.

Honda has been steadily expanding its portfolio of LEED-certified green buildings in North America since 1999, after a parts warehouse and service training facility in Oregon became the first mixed-use industrial building in America to achieve LEED-Gold EB (Existing Building) certification.

Honda’s green buildings in North America include:

• American Honda parts warehouse and training facility in Gresham, Oregon, now LEED-Platinum certified
• American Honda data center in Longmont, Colorado, the first LEED-Version 2.2. Silver-certified data center in the U.S.
• American Honda parts consolidation center in Troy, Ohio (LEED-Gold);
• American Honda Finance Corp.’s Mid-Atlantic Region facility in Wilmington, Delaware (LEED-Gold CI for Commercial Interiors)
• Honda R&D Americas’s Acura Design Studio in Torrance, California; its Marine Engine Research Facility in Grant-Valkaria, Florida; and its central plant facility in Raymond, Ohio (all LEED-Gold)
• Honda Manufacturing of Indiana’s welcome center at its auto plant in Greensburg, Indiana (LEED)
• Honda Aircraft Company’s world headquarters, R&D facility and the home of the HondaJet very light jet, in Greensboro, North Carolina (LEED-Gold)

Green building features at Honda facilities in the U.S. include such items as conservation easements; low-flow bathroom and kitchen fixtures; more energy-efficient heating and air-conditioning systems, lamps and lighting controls; Energy Star-rated appliances; cool roof materials; and wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Honda’s Environmental Leadership

Honda has led the Union of Concerned Scientists rankings of overall vehicle environmental performance since 2000, and a Honda vehicle has topped the list of America’s greenest vehicles, from the America Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), for 11 consecutive years.

Its portfolio of advanced environmental products includes Honda CIGS thin-film solar cells, now being installed at select Honda facilities in the US and Japan, and a solar-powered hydrogen refueling station on its campus in Torrance, CA, intended for refueling fuel cell electric vehicles such as the FCX Clarity.

In 2006, Honda became the first automaker to announce voluntary CO₂ emissions reduction targets for its global fleet of automobile, powersports and power equipment products and its global network of manufacturing plants.

Today, the company is striving for higher carbon reductions, while working to minimize waste, water use and the total environmental footprint of its operations worldwide.