Green Building Initiatives: Keys to success for your LEED project Joseph Raccuia, P.E., CCM, LEED AP Senior Construction Manager H.R. Gray Columbus, Ohio uring the last several years, the interest in going green has been driven by design and construction professionals as well as owners. While green initiatives ranging from the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program to a variety of lifecycle cost programs and more are becoming the norm, the overriding question still remains—how do I make my LEED project a success? Fortunately, with a complete and thorough understanding of factors including the building or structure type, location and site conditions, as well as the project team’s familiarity with sustainable design and LEED protocol, one can lay the foundation for success early in the planning process. The following details keys to success for your next LEED project.
Planning for Success: Building the Team Simply, a LEED project requires a lot of collaboration with the project team members. In the pre-design phase, the owner selects the primary participants—usually the architect, LEED coordinator, commissioning agent and construction manager (CM). Great care needs to be taken to establish a team that can work together as a collaborative unit as this is key to success for this type of project. Team formation considers capability, team dynamics, compatibility, communication, trust building and commitment to an integrated process. Also, LEED accreditation/experience must be a primary consideration.
66 APWA Reporter
May 2012
Once the primary participants are selected, project programming can begin. In addition to programming, a LEED project requires three additional documents and team members must clearly understand who is responsible for assembling this information as well as the intent of the necessary data. The Owner’s Project Requirement (OPR) is an explanation of the ideas, concepts and criteria that are determined by the owner to be important to the success of the project. Further, the OPR includes the program, quality, special features and environmental/sustainability vision. The second document is the LEED Project Checklist, which is the game plan for attaining the LEED rating and is used for registering the project with USGBC. The third and final document is the Basis of Design (BOD). This document contains the design information necessary to accomplish the owner’s project requirements and includes system descriptions, indoor environmental quality criteria, design assumptions and applicable codes, standards, regulations and guidelines. The CM is responsible for the development of special contract language for LEED requirements to avoid ambiguities in the participant’s role, responsibility and scope of services.
The Design Phase Once the design process starts, the importance of the design team working together becomes very apparent for a LEED project to be successful. Various disciplines of the design team must be integrated to achieve the sustainability goals. The traditional method of each discipline designing in isolation does not work. For example,
the building skin and the interior space planning contribute to energy performance, lighting density, and indoor air quality as much as the mechanical and electrical systems do. Materials and finish selections can affect air quality, lighting, and energy loads. If the components are designed independently, there is likely to be redundancy or conflict between the systems. The design team on a LEED project must also analyze various design component alternatives with computer simulation modeling and life-cycle costing for final decision making. Life-cycle costing is an estimating, engineering and financial practice all wrapped up into one calculation. The end result is a decision-making tool that successfully guides the design team and owner in the selection of like building components from an ownership cost point of view rather than a first cost comparison. The accuracy of the calculations is dependent upon assumptions such as first cost; useful life; non-fuel maintenance and operating cost; future cost of utility; replacement cost; residual value; and escalation rate and cost of capital. There are many tradeoffs to deal with and the CM is required to produce many cost comparisons and life-cycle analysis. Decision making is not vested in a single individual; rather, all decisions are made unanimously by the project team. By comparing like components in this way, the project team can decide which components are the most cost effective for the project. This integrated method
