Bridgestone's Warren County plant earns Silver LEED

WARREN COUNTY, Tenn. (Sept. 4, 2014) — Bridgestone Americas' Warren County tire manufacturing plant has won Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification at the Silver level from the U.S. Green Building Council.

LEED is a green building certification program that recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices among manufacturing and commercial buildings.

The Warren County factory won LEED V2 certification in 2008, the first tire manufacturing facility in the world to do so, according to Nashville, Tenn.-based Bridgestone. The plant also was one of only three in the world to win the council's “Existing Buildings Operations and Maintenance 2009” certification, the tire maker said.

To win recertification under the more stringent LEED V3 program, the Warren County plant implemented many new initiatives, the company said, including:'

• Installing new plumbing equipment and potable water efficiency initiatives that reduced employee water consumption by 42.7 percent;

• Planting water-efficient native landscaping that improved the plant's wildlife habitat while reducing irrigation water consumption by 93 percent;

• Achieving 31 percent greater energy efficiency than the average Bridgestone manufacturing facility; and

• Transforming 75 percent of the plant site into a certified wildlife habitat.

Warren Plant Manager John Stewart said the “recertification and achievement is a direct result of the hard work and dedication of every Warren plant teammate.

“Helping to ensure a healthy environment for current and future generations is Bridgestone's environmental mission, and we're very proud to join an elite group through this achievement.”

The plant manufactures 9,000 Bridgestone and Firestone truck and bus tires per day and employs 990 people.

The facility also has been recognized as an OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) Star site—“meaning it has excellent safety and health management systems and injury rates that are below the industry's national average,” according to Bridgestone.