Brazil Engine Plant’s Environmental Practices Lead to LEED

The environmental features and efficiency practices of our new Joinville engine plant in Brazil has earned the plant LEED Gold certification – the first automotive plant in South America to earn this accreditation from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The plant is GM’s sixth LEED-certified building and joins these GM facilities in this prestigious club:  Lansing (Mich.)Delta Township assembly, GM China Advanced Technical Center, GM China Headquarters, Warren (Mich.) Enterprise Data Center, and Milford Proving Ground Administration Building.

Here are just a few of the numbers showcasing results of the team’s work in meeting their LEED goals:

9 – Olympic-sized swimming pools of water saved every year through the plant’s reverse osmosis water treatment process – a first automotive application of this technology.

350 – Kilowatt size of the facility’s solar array – the first solar energy system in the Brazilian automotive industry.

10.5 – CO2 avoided (in tons) through the use of solar power.

220 – Homes in Brazil that could be powered by the energy saved through the plant’s solar energy use.

15,000 –Liters of water heated by the solar array every day for use in the plant.

76 – Percentage reduction of non-recyclable waste – kilograms per vehicle produced – at Joinville from 2005 to 2013.

1,500 – Tons of organic waste composted in 2013 from all of GM’s Brazilian facilities.

Our Joinville plant is also working hard to achieve landfill-free certification where none of the waste generated from manufacturing goes to landfill.  Instead it will all be recycled, reused or converted to energy.  When certified, it would join six other South America facilities and more than 100 total GM global facilities to earn this designation.

Mike Robinson, GM’s vice president of sustainability and global regulatory affairs, believes Joinville’s environmental activity is aligned with everything we stand for as a company.

“From the use of solar power to water conservation, this is how we want all of our facilities to aspire to operate,” he said.

Indeed, there’s something to be said about achieving your goals.

And by the looks of it, Joinville isn’t done yet.