International Certification U.S. Green Building Council

BDA is a maquiladora that manufactures jeans and garments for export to different markets, including the United States, Argentina and Brazil. On December 5th, it has obtained the highest award at the Sustainability level, the LEED Certification awarded by the United States Green Building Council, creator of this scheme recognized worldwide and with more than 60,000 certified projects and another in the process of Certification in all the Continents. of the world.
The BDA Industrial Plant is the first Paraguayan Industry to obtain this Certification, and it is the first Textile Industry in America to obtain it.

The LEED Certification (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) means by its acronym “Leader in Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Design”. The obtained one is the LEED Silver Certification, under the New Construction v3 version.

The company ARKÉ, unique in processes of LEED Certification in Paraguay, is proud of the achievement, and has led this process since the beginning of the Project, the process of Work and post work, guiding the efforts of the entire Project team, the Construction Company and the different systems suppliers, to achieve Sustainability in each of these processes, thus obtaining a unique Industry in the country in terms of Sustainability.

There are central axes on which the efforts to achieve the obtained sustainability were based. The first is in relation to the Water Resource. As the main consumption for the manufacture is the laundry water, the goal is to recycle at least 50% of the washing water, through the installation of a first level effluent treatment plant located in the western area of ​​the city. property. This plant allows the treatment of gray water on one side, black water on the other and industrial water independently. The treated wastewater is released into the stream once the national discharge parameters have been met. Industrial waters are partially reused. The treated gray water is recirculated through the network of treated gray water, which is used for toilets throughout the plant. Thus, a saving of 70% in the consumption of drinking water is obtained.
Owner: BDA S.A. Messrs. Jorge Bunchicoff and Laureano Rauek.

The next considered axis is the maintenance of undisturbed green areas and landscaping criteria. The BDA site has a large amount of green areas, so it has been chosen to partially carry out sprinkler irrigation for the species planted on the site, in areas that had to be intervened for the construction of the project. One of the premises from the beginning of the work was to identify the areas that did not need to be altered, to keep them in their original state, native species adapted to the climate of the place, where no irrigation has been placed since they are from before intervene the project, without any irrigation. This has been possible thanks to the establishment of protection perimeters during the Work, in order to prevent vehicles and construction machinery from passing through the area. It has managed to maintain 12,000 m2 of green areas, of a total of 23,000 m2 of the property, which is favored the fauna of the area.

Another of the axes considered is the thermal comfort of the occupants, and in an innovative way of the production areas. BDA is the only industrial plant in Paraguay that has thermal comfort conditions for production areas. The Company had observed in its zone of previous manufacture that the officials of the areas of cutting, embroidery, sewing, etc. had low performance, mainly due to the high temperatures existing in Paraguay for more than 8 months a year, with which for the new Industrial Plant, it was decided to make the exterior air inlet to comply with the parameters of the ASHRAE 62.1, and it was also decided to refrigerate those environments. The only non-refrigerated area is the laundry, due to the particular working characteristics of the machines, but all the other production areas are refrigerated. With this, a high level of compliance with the thermal comfort conditions of the occupants is obtained, and an impressive improvement in the production of the plant personnel has been noted.

The next considered axis is Energy Efficiency. Important efforts have been made in passive conditioning, using highly reflective roofs and with an important thermal insulation package, to avoid heat gain. Double glasses and efficient cooling equipment have been used. All energy saving strategies achieve a saving of 40% in relation to a similar plant.

With regard to outdoor lighting, as the plant is in a mostly residential area, with low levels of night lighting, work has been done to minimize outdoor lighting. This in addition to contributing to the objectives of the Certification, ensures that the population neighboring the plant is not disturbed. The area that is worked at night that is laundry, is in the center of the plant, so there is no escape from the laundry to the outside of the lot. This has been verified through the simulation of night lighting, which can be seen in the SS credit c.8.

In addition to all those mentioned, in the Work stage it has been achieved that 96% of all the waste generated in the Work process, is reused or recycled, with this it was achieved that less than 4% of the waste was in final disposal in landfills. 26% of regional materials were used, consisting of concrete, rods, bricks, whose raw material is extracted within a radius of 800 km of the work.

With the aforementioned elements, an Industrial Plant has been obtained that manages to exceed the parameters of sustainability and the requirements of international clients, and has managed to open doors to new markets that BDA did not have before the realization of the new plant that aspire to LEED Certification.

Team:
ARKÉ Study: Ing. Gabriela Mesquita, Ing. Jorge Bernal, Arj. Luján Rojas.
Construction: Civil Works EISA, Lighting and electricity ABS Assembly, Refrigeration Enving, Effluent treatment plant Ing. Juan Escribá, Project Manager: Ing. Sandro Conti.