GM Builds First LEED Gold Automotive Plant

Poor old General Motors does not often get good press in TreeHugger, what with our obsessions with Hummers and who killed the electric car, so it is nice to congratulate them on their recent LEED Gold certification at the new Lansing Delta Assembly plant. It has a reflective white roof (see Mike on white roofs to fight global warming) rainwater collection for flushing toilets, and a variety of other features. Over the first ten years of operations, the facility is expected to save over 40 million gallons of water and 30 million kwh of electricity. GM says that it is the "only automotive manufacturing plant in the world to ever receive any level of LEED certification"- Evidently the Ford Plant that Bill McDonough worked over is just very green, and the LEED Gold Visitor Center connected to it is not a manufacturing plant, So we congratulate them on being first and hope that the cars that come out of it are as efficient. ::General Motors via USGBC