The 10 Dumbest Green Buildings on Earth

While it’s great that green building practices are gaining popularity, sometimes, LEED certification doesn’t exactly mesh with the building’s intended purpose. Case in point: eco-friendly gas stations, parking garages and – amazingly – bottled water plants. Greener Building Elements has come up with a great list of 10 ridonkulous LEED-certified buildings that’ll have you scratching your head and calling greenwash.

From Greener Building Elements, via Treehugger:

1. BP’s Helios House Gas Station – Los Angeles, Cal.

Yes, there is an LEED-certified gas station. It’s actually a nice building, complete with rainwater collection, solar panels, recycled building materials, and LED lighting. However, don’t think you’ll be able to refuel with biodiesel or charge up your electric car—they’re only in the petroleum-dealing business. How green of them, right?

2. Justin Timberlake’s Golf Course/Lodge – Woodstock, Tenn.

So Justin Timberlake decided that he wants to buy a golf course and fix it up with an LEED-certified lodge. While it’s an improvement compared to most other golf courses, the fact remains that maintaining a golf course takes chemicals and lots of water. In the United States alone, golf courses total more than 1.7 million acres and consume around 4 billion gallons of water every day. How does a green lodge counteract the water used to maintain the course? Justin, if you really want to be green, you should have turned it into a wildlife sanctuary instead.

3. Nestle Pure Life Water Bottling Plant – Boiling Springs, Tenn.

While this isn’t the only LEED-certified water bottling plant, it’s listed for having the most greenwashed name. Ozarka, Arrowhead, Ice Mountain, and Deer Park water bottling plants also have LEED certifications of some sort, but they couldn’t compete with Pure Life in the name department. If anyone needs a reminder of why bottling water is a bad idea, here are five reasons to ditch the bottle. Oh, and Nestle as a whole won’t be getting an award for their treatment of the planet and its people any time soon.

Get the rest over at Greener Building Elements. Treehugger has also added a few of their own hilarious (yet sad) examples to the list.

Link [Greener Building Elements] + [Treehugger]

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