The Vancouver Convention Centre announced the recertification of its West Building as LEED Platinum for Building Operations and Maintenance – maintaining its double LEED Platinum status.

“Sustainability is at the core of everything we do,” says Craig Lehto, general manager of the Vancouver Convention Centre. “We take pride in the high standards we’ve set for ourselves to not only maintain our sustainable building features but to also incorporate environmental best practices in our day-to-day operations for the benefit of our community.”

The Vancouver Convention Centre’s West Building was the first convention centre in the world to achieve double LEED Platinum – the first in 2009 for Building Design and Construction and the second in 2017 for Building Operations and Maintenance.

The Vancouver Convention Centre has robust water conservation, energy efficiency and waste management system. Highlights from these key areas include:

• Reducing Green House Gas emissions by around 150 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by installing a heat recovery system that recovers heat from the building to preheat domestic hot water for the facility.

• Reducing freshwater use by approximately 70 per cent through increasing the capacity of the onsite Blackwater treatment facility, which cleans and recycles water for non-potable uses, such as irrigation for the living roof.

• Diverting more than 85 per cent of waste from landfills.

• Installing two onsite bio-composters that reduce the mass of organic waste by approximately 70-80 per cent.

“The Vancouver Convention Centre’s West building has been a leadership project from day one by meeting LEED Platinum certification as the highest level of environmental performance,” says Thomas Mueller, president and CEO of the Canada Green Building Council, which delivers the LEED program in Canada. “Recertification demonstrates a strong commitment to verifying and improving performance on an ongoing basis. The Vancouver Convention Centre is a landmark green building and a beacon of sustainability for conference centres across the world.”

Since the opening of the Vancouver Convention Centre’s West building in 2009, it has been committed to helping protect the environment.