The Solberg Company, the world’s foremost innovator of firefighting foam concentrates and systems hardware announced today the company’s Headquarters/Manufacturing facility for the Americas, located in Green Bay, Wisconsin has been awarded Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Certification.
LEED is a third party certification program and the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. Developed by the U.S. Green Building
Council (USGBC) in 2000 through a consensus based process; LEED serves as a tool for buildings of all types and sizes. LEED certification offers third party validation of a project’s green features and verifies that the building is operating exactly the way it was designed to. Solberg’s certification process took eighteen months to complete.
“At Solberg we produce the world’s most complete line of environmentally responsible foam agents. It is only appropriate that these foam concentrates are produced in a LEED factory that has zero emissions to the environment. To do otherwise would be hypocritical,” explained Solberg’s General Manager, Steve Hansen. “LEED is a direct complement to our product strategy of developing and commercializing high-performance, environmentally sustainable firefighting foam concentrates like RE-HEALING™ Foam, the first multi-certified fluorosurfactant, fluoropolymer-free firefighting foam for Class B fuel fires.” Hansen went on to say, “LEED building criteria included: sustainable sites, water efficiency, waste efficiency, energy and atmosphere, indoor environmental quality and innovation in design. In short, we live the environment in everything we do.”
The Green Bay facility totals 20,750 square feet (1928 m2) of floor space within two buildings located on 10 acres of land. The manufacturing / office building encompasses 16,650 square feet (1547 m2).
A separate 4,100 square foot (382 m2) building – 64 ft. high (20m) is a state-of-the-art fire research and test laboratory where firefighting foam products are developed and tested to industry compliance standards. Solberg is an Amerex Corporation company with a European heritage.
“Environmental commitment and sustainable operations is not new to Amerex,” stated Executive Vice President Dennis Kennedy. As a McWane Company, “our environmental legacy is not only to focus on today’s community, our goal is to protect the environment for today and tomorrow.” McWane is an active member of the USGBC board of directors at both the national and the state chapter levels to ensure sustainability remains a focus. Currently, McWane has three LEED accredited professionals on staff.
Based in Green Bay, Wisconsin with operations in Bergen, Norway and Sydney, Australia, Solberg has been involved with the manufacture of firefighting foams since the mid-1970s. Solberg is recognized throughout Europe and the Asia Pacific Region for its environmentally sustainable fluorosurfactant and fluoropolymer-free products that are an innovation in Class B firefighting foam. Additionally, Solberg manufactures a complete range of traditional foam concentrates, Class A and High-Expansion foam concentrates including foam systems hardware. Solberg’s unique technology is preferred by customers in the aviation, chemical, energy, fire services, oil and gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, solvent & coatings markets.
