Coke is green? No worries, this isn't the Coca-Cola Company's salute to the upcoming St. Patrick's day festivities. The company's new World of Coca-Cola theme museum (or theme-seum), which opened last May, has been certified LEED Gold. The news has the soft drink giant positively fizzing with excitement: "Every aspect of the NEW World of Coca-Cola’s design, construction and operation was carefully planned to reflect The Coca-Cola Company’s commitment to environmental and energy issues."

Just how sustainable are the new $92 million digs? You'll be happy to know that the facility wasn't built on endangered alligator habitat, but on a former industrial site. Fittingly, the carpets are made from recycled plastic bottle material. Energy and water use is reduced by 30% compared to a conventional building. Light-colored paving, vegetated grounds, and a reflective roof ward off heat-island effects. And Coke says that 90% of construction waste was salvaged, reused or recycled.

One non-standard amenity is that the company encourages its over-caffeinated workers to bike to work with showers and bicycle lockers.

But the best feature by far is that when the facility has outlived its useful life, you can simply crush it like a soda can (providing you can find a big enough boot) and haul it to your local recycler. And let me tell you, you'll get much more than the standard nickel reward for your trouble. Okay, I made that part up.

Of course, Coke wants it's customers to leave their fun shack with more than just souvenirs (propaganda?). They want to educate. That's why the building includes a "green scavenger hunt" that promises to be two litres of pure joy.

The new Cola-plex, which is twice as big as the old one, is expected to bring in over 1 million visitors a year. Says one VP of something, "We expect the new World of Coca-Cola will provide a new and different platform for people to immerse themselves in our brands in a way that is magical and fun" and, presumably, caramel-flavored.

However, some may think that Coke's quest for gold has the blunt sweetness of high-fructose corn syrup. Coca-Cola's environmental record has been scrutinized in recent years, accused of drinking dry local water resources Daniel-Day-(-)Lewis-I-Drink-Your-Milkshake style, among other misdeeds. In 2005, a community in India protested the company for allegedly being too thirsty and polluting the soil and water surrounding the local bottling plant. They were even accused of offering cadmium-laced "sludge" to farmers to use as fertilizer. The plant eventually closed. Other accusations of environmental and human rights violations have been brought up in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, India (again, in 2007) and Colombia.

For its part, Coca-Cola says it's making strides, reducing glass, recycling waste, curbing the GHG HFC's (hydrofluorocarbons) and, in 2005, conserving "enough water globally to flush the toilets in their headquarters for more than 300 years."

With all this in mind, and a 20-ounce in hand no less, I can't decide whether the building is a step in the right direction or a completely unnecessary, 97,000 square feet of corporate self-aggrandizement.

Bonus Link:
- In my research, I found rumors that Coke may have originally been green due to high levels of chloroplasts. It's not true, which must be disappointing to Coke as it would have made a great "returning to our roots" ad campaign.