MONTERREY, Mexico - The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) recognized Carrier Corp. for its commitment to environmental sustainability, awarding the Monterrey, Mexico, Commercial factory with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Gold certification. The Carrier facility is the first HVAC factory in the world to receive LEED Gold certification.

“Carrier is committed to providing energy-efficient building solutions to our customers to help reduce their costs and minimize the impact on the environment. We apply those same standards internally to produce green products in green factories,” said Geraud Darnis, president of Carrier Corp.

Darnis noted that the plant is also the first industrial facility outside of the United States to achieve LEED Gold for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance™ certification.

Carrier conducted a number of initiatives to achieve LEED Gold certification, including a comprehensive energy audit to assess its overall energy performance. New energy-saving opportunities and subsequent investments resulted in an improved energy performance.

Key projects included converting factory lights to high-efficiency, low-mercury-content bulbs, saving 408 MWh annually and providing a payback of less than two years. The factory’s energy consumption from lighting is also reduced by the use of skylights for the factory floor, which provide daylight for over 65 percent of regularly occupied spaces. To optimize load sharing, large compressors were replaced with smaller compressors, cutting energy waste and resulting in annual savings of about 115 MWh.

In addition to the investments, Carrier also took advantage of free behavior-changing ideas to drive energy savings, such as instituting a night power outage plan, shutting down power in all circuits not used during evening hours. This idea saved approximately 160 MWh per year, with no capital investment.

Rick Fedrizzi, president, CEO and founding chairman, USGBC, congratulated Carrier saying, “Carrier demonstrates continuous leadership in sustainability and the built environment. This recent accomplishment is another example of that leadership and Carrier’s belief that green products must start in a green company. We believe that every manufacturing employee should work in a green facility, and we remain single-mindedly committed to delivering on our vision of green buildings for everyone within a generation.”

In 2009, Carrier factories in Charlotte, N.C., and Huntington, Ind., received LEED certification, and in 2010, Carrier’s Shanghai, China, offices were awarded LEED for Commercial Interiors™ Silver certification.

Publication date: 04/18/2011