METLIFE’S LONG ISLAND CITY OFFICE AWARDED SILVER "LEED" CERTIFICATION
NEW YORK, April 02, 2009
MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) announced today that its Long Island City facility has achieved the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design for Existing Buildings (LEED EB) Silver certification from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).
The LEED program for existing buildings aims to reduce the environmental impact of commercial buildings and to create a healthier workspace. The certification of MetLife's Long Island City facility marks the company's first property to achieve this honor. This office is also one of ten ENERGY STAR rated MetLife locations.
"To be recognized by the USGBC for MetLife's sustainability initiatives is a significant achievement," said John Vazquez, vice president, corporate real estate. "The certification of our Long Island City building reaffirms our efforts to reduce energy consumption and costs, provide a healthier, more productive workplace for our associates, and lessen our overall global impact."
To earn LEED EB Silver certification, the building's operations and procedures underwent a complete assessment based on USGBC guidelines. More energy efficient policies were put in place to meet and maintain the program's sustainability requirements. As a result, the building now has a projected annual energy savings of $192,582, has reduced water use by 21% through water efficient toilets and faucets and has a waste diversion rate of 65% through recycling.
To support a healthy indoor environment for associates, MetLife has implemented a green cleaning program to reduce the use of harmful chemicals on site and increased indoor ventilation to ensure the circulation of fresh air. Associates actively participate in the company's recycling program and are continually educated on ways to reduce their environmental impact in and out of the workplace.
The USGBC's LEED rating system provides building owners and managers resources to operate sustainable, high performance green buildings. As required by the program, the Long Island City facility will need recertification every five years in order to maintain and update its green policies and procedures.
MetLife was recently named to the Uptime Institute's 2009 Global Green 100 list. The list honors corporations for their significant energy efficiency achievements in the operation of their enterprise IT and data centers. The Uptime Institute is a research think-tank and advisor to owners and operators of the world's largest enterprise data centers on the technical and business issues of computing reliability, sustainability and energy efficiency.
MetLife, Inc. is a leading provider of insurance, employee benefits and financial services with operations throughout the United States and the Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific regions. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, MetLife, Inc. reaches more than 70 million customers around the world and MetLife is the largest life insurer in the United States (based on life insurance in-force). The MetLife companies offer life insurance, annuities, auto and home insurance, retail banking and other financial services to individuals, as well as group insurance and retirement & savings products and services to corporations and other institutions. For more information, visit www.metlife.com.