Wharton San Francisco's new expanded facility, located in the historic Hills Brothers Plaza at the base of the Bay Bridge, has achieved LEED CI Gold Certification. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is an internationally recognized green building program administered by the U.S. Green Building Council; CI refers to the benchmarks for Commercial Interiors.

"It is an understatement to say that achieving LEED Gold is not easy," pointed out University Architect David Hollenberg. "To have done so is to signal the level of collaboration by Wharton with its architects and facility managers, and to indicate the school's commitment to sustainability." He added that Penn's Climate Action Plan, which began in 2009, requires that all new buildings meet at least the LEED Silver certification requirements.

Project details that earned the San Francisco campus points on the LEED rating system included the use of construction materials containing a percentage of post-consumer recycled content, the incorporation of recycling and composting programs, and the installation of low-flow water fixtures and EnergyStar appliances. Wharton San Francisco also earned a LEED Innovation Credit by implementing a Green Cleaning program where, among other things, the housekeepers use environmentally friendly cleaning products and have traded disposable cleaning cloths and mop heads for washable, reusable ones. Learn more about the new Wharton facility on the San Francisco campus website.

The new San Francisco facility is Wharton's second LEED Gold building. Joe's Café, located on Penn's Philadelphia campus in Wharton's Steinberg Hall-Dietrich Hall achieved LEED CI Gold Certification in 2011.