Five of the official facilities constructed for the Toronto 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games have earned LEED certification from the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC), prior to the Games July 15 opening.

“With the global exposure of the Pan Am Games, it was critical to ensure that buildings of this type and scale are built to leading sustainability standards,” says Thomas Mueller, president and chief executive officer of the Canada Green Building Council.

All buildings boast green measures, such as green roofs, diversion of site waste from landfills and incineration, the use of geothermal energy, and property irrigation using rainwater stored in underground cisterns.

In addition, the projects aimed to reduce utility costs and maintenance burden by maximizing energy and water efficiency. This included implementing advanced building automation.

For the CIBC Pan Am/Parapan Am Aquatics Centre and Field House that will host many swimming events, the pools posed challenges due their high utility consumption rates. Optimized energy performance was targeted through a number of measures like the harnessing of geothermal energy from the field under the north parking lot.

The certified projects are:

• The Atos Markham Pan Am/Parapan Am Centre, certified LEED Gold on June 12, 2015.
• CIBC Pan Am/Parapan Am Aquatics Centre and Field House, certified LEED Gold on April 7, 2015.
• CIBC Pan Am/Parapan Am Athletics Stadium, certified LEED Silver on May 27, 2015.
• Cisco Milton Pan Am/Parapan Am Velodrome, certified LEED Silver on May 28, 2015.
• CIBC Hamilton Pan Am Soccer Stadium, certified LEED Silver on May 28, 2015.