Hello everybody! I'm dealing with a project of a particular warehouse for an italian wine company, which is going to be developed completely underground, and which will be used to store wine bottles during the ageing phase of the wine production chain. The warehouse is completely dedicated to the storage of wine bottles during their whole ageing phase (which is around 5 to 12 years), and will not be characterized by the presence of any person on a regularly basis. Above this new warehouse, the project expect to recreate the natural land cover, which currently characterize the site area (in particular vineyards).

Given the particular end-use of the project that I briefly described above, I have a series of questions about the eligibility of the project to LEED certification process, as follow:

  • The warehouse will be used for the exclusive storage of wine bottles, with no regular access of people, therefore no indoor water fixtures of any type are provided. How can the project demonstrate compliance to WE Prerequisite Indoor Water Use Reduction and WE Credit Indoor Water Use Reduction? Is the project eligible to gain points under WE Credit Indoor Water Use Reduction?
  • The indoor environment of the warehouse needs to be strictly monitored in order to guarantee adequate temperature and relative humidity setpoints (which are defined at 14°C at 50%Hr during the whole year), and no ventilation (nor natural or mechanical) is allowed to be implemented in the project, as it would compromise the correct maturation of the wine stored in the warehouse. That being said, how can the project demonstrate compliance to IEQ Prerequisite Minimum Indoor Air Quality Strategies?
  • Would the project be able to achieve credit SS Protect and Restore Habitat considering that the natural land cover will be recreated as part of the project scope of work?
  • For MR Prerequisite Storage and Collection of Recyclables, no waste room is expected to be provided to the warehouse, considering that no waste will be produced. Given that, is the prerequisite still mandatory to obtain certification?

Thank you all in advance

Michele