With the opening of its new LEED-certified research center in San Juan Bautista, Calif., vegetable seed company Enza Zaden is putting another significant stake in the ground as a green business.
Ronald Welton, breeding station manager, and Mel Holland, senior lettuce breeder, cut the ribbon on Enza Zaden’s Photo courtesy Enza Zaden.
“There’s a strong environmental focus to how we run our business. Completion of the new LEED-certified research facility is a great complement to that focus, and an opportunity for us to ensure that sustainability and innovation are mainstays in our long term strategic plan,” said Ronald Welten, Breeding Station Manager, Enza Zaden Research USA.
“Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design,” or LEED, is the recognized international standard for the design, construction and operation practices of high performance green buildings.
Companies that pursue LEED certification typically have well-established environmental programs that play a key role in operations and long term growth. With Enza Zaden offering leading conventional and organic programs in a wide assortment of vegetables and culinary herbs, a LEED certified research facility, where each feature and functionality has been purposefully designed in accordance with measurable solutions is appropriate: green products created in a green building.
Here’s a video about the opening of the building from trade publication, The Packer.
“Among our goals in building this facility, which focuses on genetics and post-harvest shelf life research, is to enhance opportunities to share insights and best practices between research and marketing and sales, and in doing so, to steadily improve our ability to deliver ongoing added value to our customers,” said Ton van der Velden, President and CEO, Enza Zaden North America.
Enza Zaden, which is headquartered in the The Netherlands, has 20 research stations around the globe.
