BASF West Memphis facility earns a LEED® Silver certification

Score denotes exceptional environmental performance

By Donna Jakubowski

BASF announced that its West Memphis, Arkansas, administration building has achieved Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) rating system, a score denoting exceptional environmental performance.

“BASF’s commitment to sustainable construction is apparent with the LEED certification of its own West Memphis Administration Building,” said Charlie Popeck, President of Green Ideas, the LEED consultant for the project. This latest achievement is one of the many high-performance building efforts that I’ve witnessed while working with BASF over the last 10 years. It’s refreshing to see this level of commitment from a reputable company such as BASF.

BASF’s West Memphis administration building achieved LEED points for:

Sustainable Sites: 7 out of 26 possible points
Water Efficiency: 8 out of 10 possible points
Energy & Atmosphere: 12 out of 35 possible points
Materials & Resources: 7 out of 14 possible points
Indoor Environmental Quality: 12 out of 15 possible points
Innovation & Design Process: 4 out of 6 possible points

“Earning this rigorous third-party certification underscores BASF’s commitment to sustainable development while demonstrating the effectiveness of the high-performance technologies used in the project,” said Charlene Wall-Warren, Sustainability Manager - North America, BASF.

BASF’s West Memphis site features a variety of BASF-enabled construction products that lower energy consumption and increase building life expectancy. Among other benefits, these products enable the facility to eliminate the need to use potable water for landscape irrigation and reduce domestic water use by 40 percent.

During construction, 37 percent of the building materials used contain recycled content, including Green Sense® concrete mixture, which allows greater levels of recycled content and minimizes carbon footprint . Additionally, 59 percent were sourced regionally, which means they were extracted, harvested and manufactured within 500 miles.

Other BASF products used in the construction of the facility include:

Spray-applied polyurethane foam wall insulation and roofing system and Senergy® impact-resistant exterior insulating finishing systems (EIFS), which provide R-values of 21 for walls and 32 for the roof
Therma CORE™ National Gypsum drywall with BASF Micronal® Change Phase technology used in the meeting room moderates room temperature by absorbing, storing, and dissipating heat generated by occupants.

LEED is a designation of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to encourage and recognize high performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

Approximately 130 employees work at the West Memphis site, which began production in 1981. The products manufactured in the facility are used in industrial and municipal water treatment processes, applications for adhesives, coatings, energy, mining, paint, paper, petroleum, plastics and rubber industries.

For more information about this project, or to learn more about BASF’s commitment to sustainable construction, visit www.basf.us/construction.