Environmental

Permitting

The State of Texas has instituted a one-stop air and water quality permitting system available through the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Air Quality

The nine-county Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area is designated a moderate ozone non attainment area under the 1997 eight-hour ozone standard. The DFW Metroplex continues to achieve decreasing trends in ambient ozone and its precursor emissions, NOx and VOC. A summary of control strategies and reduction estimates is published in DFW Eight-Hour Ozone Non-attainment Area Attainment Demonstration adopted May 2007.

Landfill

Plano is the contractor for the North Texas Municipal Water District regional composting program. Plano accepts material from Allen, Frisco, Plano and Richardson residential collections and wood from Green Builder programs operating in Frisco and Plano.

 

Live Green in Plano

Frito-Lay headquarters earns LEED Gold Certification

Plano's Frito-Lay headquarters is the only existing building in Texas to receive the distinction and one of only 12 corporate headquarters nationally to be awarded the Leadership in Energy and Envinronmental Design recognition. Frito-Lay is also the city of Plano's number one recycling customer with more than 70 percent of the company's waste being diverted from the landfill.

Plano is committed to sustainable living.

In 2007, the City of Plano led by example in adopting a sustainable building policy to demonstrate Plano’s commitment to the environment. The City uses the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system to achieve the highest level of LEED Certification possible for all city facilities.

Texas was the first state in the nation to establish an Energy Efficiency Resource Standards (EERS) policy requiring utilities to meet electric and gas energy savings targets.