Medrad's new assembly plant in Victory Road Business Park has been built to qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification.

The idea behind the certification is to do well by doing good: erecting and operating buildings that put less stress on the environment and workers, and offer the potential to reduce construction and operating costs.

The LEED certification system was developed by the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council.

When the projects were being planned, Medrad's top executives and board reviewed information on LEED certification for both the Victory Road factory and for the company's new Global Center headquarters in Marshall, according to Eric Ferchaw, the company's director of global facilities.

Directors agreed that "going green" would improve working conditions for employees, offer financial benefits, help the company's public image and aid the environment. "That's a balanced approach that fits well with our culture," he said. "The bottom line is that it's the right thing to do."

LEED certification often is hard to achieve in manufacturing facilities, he said, because plants use so much energy during production. Medrad overcame that disadvantage by earning extra points in certification areas linked to sustainability, materials use, recycling, water efficiency and indoor environmental quality.

Many construction materials -- including steel and carpeting -- contained recycled materials. Medrad sought to purchase much of the steel, masonry products and glass used to build the new plant from firms within 500 miles of Butler County, Mr. Ferchaw said.

Storm water is managed on-site with natural swales that cool and filter runoff.

That captured storm water also helps provide natural irrigation for local plants used in landscaping.

One major element of the program was managing construction waste, Mr. Ferchaw said. About 75 percent was recycled. "That's 300 tons of waste that did not go into a landfill," he said.

Another big area of concern was indoor environmental quality. The adhesives, glues, paints, carpeting and furniture for the plant were selected, in part, because they give off few or no volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.

"There is no 'new-car smell' here," plant manager Rafael Lopez-Cepero said during a recent tour of the facility. That chemical aroma -- familiar to anyone who has repainted a room or installed new carpeting -- results from the evaporation of VOCs, he said.

Mr. Ferchaw and Mr. Lopez-Cepero pointed to the wide use of natural light throughout the building, including the warehouse and cafeteria.

"LEED certification also looks at how you manage construction," Mr. Ferchaw said. "When workers were cutting drywall, they cut it in an enclosed space, so its dust didn't get into the duct work," he said.

The building's high-efficiency heating, ventilating and air conditioning, or HVAC, system gets help from construction elements, including a high-reflective roof that reduces the amount of energy needed for summer cooling.

Offices and training rooms are equipped with motion or heat sensors that shut off lights when no one is in the room and programmable thermostats to reduce cooling and heating costs.

Medrad has extended a recycling program for manufacturing and office wastes -- begun last year at its Indiana Township plant -- to its new facilities.

As a result of that program, the company has turned around the ratio of materials it recycles and sends to landfills, Mr. Ferchaw said. Only about 15 to 20 percent of its plant and office trash ends up in landfills, he said, with as much as 80 percent recycled.

The company produces about 100 tons of waste each month.

"Where we had been sending 80 tons to landfills, now we send only 15 to 20 tons," Mr. Ferchaw said.