Sustainability & Environment

Maintaining pristine pool water doesn’t have to come at a huge cost to the environment. We offer the best earth-friendly filtration solutions available on the market today.

The state of the world’s water resources is becoming increasingly serious as shortages and contamination worsens continuously. It has been said that the 21st century is the “Century of Water”, and we need to ensure that future generations will be able to have affordable and safe access to water. As a significant user of this scarce resource, the aquatic industry has a major role to play in this arena. Neptune-Benson is leading the way in the world of sustainable aquatic technology.

Over the last half century, the science of water filtration has steadily evolved, with dramatic surges being made in the environmental area over the last two decades. Each time the bar has been raised and our mettle tested, Neptune-Benson has risen to meet the challenges and have gained momentum in the process. No one has introduced more ground-breaking products, developed more exciting “green” technology, or helped bring the environmental vision to sparkling reality than us.

Defender® Goes Green

The most revolutionary of all our product innovations has been the Defender® Automatic Regenerative Media Filter which was introduced in 2004.

In a socio-economic climate where promoting "green" building products and "sustainability" has become the focus, Defender® has become the earth-friendly solution for pristine pool water.

The advantages include:

All have a tremendous impact on Kwh used and CO2 emission reduction, and with more than 1 billion gallons of water already saved, our contribution to reduce the carbon footprint impact is dramatic everyday.

Follow the LEEDer

LEED

Neptune-Benson’s Commitment to LEED principles pre-dates the creation of this formalized rating system. Improving the health and safety of aquatic environments has always been at the heart of what we do. Defender® has contributed to numerous projects to achieve LEED certification by routinely providing the following category points:

Energy & Atmosphere

Innovation & Design Process

Some Defender® LEED success stories:

Mt. Olympus Water & Theme Park, Wisconsin Dells, WI

Grant awarded for the installation and use of energy efficient equipment.

Washtenaw Community College

Health & Fitness Center Ann Arbor, LEED registered building Neptune-Benson’s Defender® Filters are used for the two pools at the 70,000 sq.ft. Health & Fitness Center at Washtenaw Community College, a LEED registered project opened 9/1/07.

Platinum East Portland Community Center Aquatics

“The Defender® system was key to achieving over 1 million gallons of annual water savings for the LEED Platinum East Portland Community Center Aquatics Addition. And its proven record for ease of maintenance was reassuring to our whole project team.”

— Eric Ridenour. LEED AP ND NCARB. Associate Project Architect, Urban Designer.

WhiteWater World, Div. of DreamWorld, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

Uses nine (9) Neptune-Benson Defender® Filter systems. Reduces annual waste by 98.7%. Saves over 22 million liters of water annually as compared to traditional sand filtration systems. The park’s science education lesson on Renewable Environment includes activities to discover why the use of Defender® Regenerative Media Filtration Systems is “the most important water saving strategy employed by WhiteWater World”.

“One of the most water efficient water parks in the world.”

— Environmental Resources Management Australia (ERM)

Global Environmental & Sustainable Design Rating Systems

BREEAM

There are a large number of rating and certification systems throughout the world that seek to assess and assign rankings/ratings to environmental and sustainable design. All of these systems were born regionally and nationally, with a select few attempting to expand into the global arena. Leading the global charge is the United States LEED program (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) www.usgbc.org/LEED and the United Kingdom’s BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) www.breeam.org.

LEED was officially launched in 1998 with an initial focus on commercial projects. BREEAM was created in 1990 focusing originally on residential buildings. Both systems strive for the same end-goal... to minimize a buildings carbon footprint and overall affect on the environment. As LEED and BREEAM have matured the natural progression has been to extend beyond the countries of origin. What they found during expansion is a global mentality within the AEC (Architecture Engineering & Construction) industry that was already focused regionally on sustainability and environmental issues. Now the race is on to see which rating system will emerge as the recognized worldwide leader in environmental and sustainable design grading.

The Global Fore-Runners: LEED & BREEAM

While other Green Rating Systems (GRS’s) exist LEED and BREEAM are well out in the lead and poised to capture the international top spot. To this end BREEAM has launched BREEAM Europe and BREEAM Gulf.

http://www.breeam.org/filelibrary/Presentation_on_BREEAM_Europe1.pdf

http://www.breeam.org/filelibrary/BREEAM_Gulf_Presentation_.ppt

They also offer a custom tailored approach that can be implemented by completing their “BREEAM Bespoke Application Form” available on the website.