By Hannah Lathen

South Campus’ Center of Excellence for Energy and Technology received LEED’s highest honor, platinum certification, for its environmental efficiency Oct. 5. 

LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, certification is an award given to resource-efficient buildings by the U.S. Green Building Council. The different levels of certification include certified, silver, gold and platinum.

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning instructor Christopher Noonan says receiving platinum is a great honor for the center.

“It’s a big deal, especially in energy conservation,” he said. “That’s the highest form of achievement for that.”

Construction associate professor Orlando Bagcal says receiving the certification is something that takes a great deal of work.

“Platinum is the highest, which means it complies with most of the rigorous requirements by the U.S. GBC,” he said. “LEED is all about environmental design. It has a system that we have to follow, and it

has categories, and each of those categories has a value system.”

HVAC instructor Andrew Rhinefort says the goal of getting LEED certification started early on when the building was first being designed.

“The architects have to be the ones that select the products and go through a checklist to determine what is and what isn’t meeting the requirements to become certified,” he said.

Rhinefort says having platinum certification sets the Center of Excellence in Energy and Technology apart from other higher education buildings around the United States.

“It is a certification that very few buildings get in the country,” he said. “LEED Platinum certification, back when we started this process, I think there were less than five in the state of Texas.”