Delivering sustainable construction projects is not always an easy process, but there are key steps owners and developers can take to help ensure their goals are achieved on time and within budget.
Key steps can be taken well in advance of (or at least early in) the design and construction process and include sustainability construction benchmarking, product road mapping, creating brand standards, and ensuring training on the construction team (both general contractors and subcontractors). While these might seem obvious, the nuances involved with each can help make or break a project.
Sustainability construction benchmarking helps the team understand owner requirements and project goals early in the process so that everyone is on the same page. The most cost-effective time to plan for these goals is at the beginning of the project. Changing goals mid-construction by layering on additional sustainability requirements or higher levels of certification can result in costly changes and frustration from the project team. I’ve been on dozens of projects where all of a sudden the LEED silver goal was achieved, but hey now let’s go for the goal even though we’re 80% of the way through construction. While this can be achieved, it is certainly not the most timely or cost-effective means of reaching project goals.
Additionally, its a good best practice to review your sustainability standards. While LEED certification has long been a baseline the emergence of other certification systems and regulatory requirements may mean your standards are ready for a refresh. While other systems such as WELL and BREAAM are available, carbon benchmarking and improvements are of growing importance to owners. Over the last 4 years, commitments by Fortune 500 companies to achieve net-zero emissions grew from less than 10% of companies to over 45%.
These goals are not unique to the private sector – higher education is also leading the way. Over 330 colleges and universities representing over 3.5 million people have joined the Race to Zero Carbon.
Once goals have been established, owners can work with their design teams to do very early product road mapping, to identify which products meet their required sustainability goals. Road mapping can help keep the project schedule on track, as it significantly cuts down on Revise and Resubmit during the construction process. Road mapping can also be used to create sustainable brand standards. If you develop similar project types (higher ed, corporate franchises, etc.) you likely have some sort of brand standard to maintain the look and feel of your facilities. Layering in sustainability requirements so you don’t need to research ceiling tiles, paints, insulation, etc on every single project can reduce a significant amount of time each design and construction team must spend sourcing products.
Finally, transitioning from a product roadmap or a specification is where rubber hits the road. Engaging with the subcontractors at the onset is a key component to ensuring a smooth process.
I highly recommend a dedicated LEED training session so all subs are aware of what the expectation is around your LEED or sustainability submittals so they don’t impact schedule and approvals.
These don’t have to be hours long classroom sessions – we’ve developed a 15 minute training video that just very clearly details what needs to be included – a brief sample of which I’ll go through.
First and foremost is the Submittal Cover Sheet – walk the subs through everything that is required to be filled out as clearly as possible – especially noting requirements to include costs and quantities.
Walking through sample documentation is extremely effective and highlighting what required information is necessary – in this case, demonstrating the difference between an industry wide EPD and a product specific EPD
Then highlighting what specific data points are required to be present. Most people aren’t sustainability experts, and to know if something is 100ppm, 1000ppm and the required level of granularity to be a materials scientists can be overwhelming! But this type of detailed training can make the process a whole lot smoother.
Having a finalized, complete sample submittal with a populated cover sheet and clean backup documentation for future reference is a great takeaway to avoid errors down the road. Additionally, providing examples of the most common types of documentation including EPDs, HPDs, Greenguard Gold certs are great points of reference.
At the end of the day, these all help avoid the dreaded revise and resubmit, which can add weeks to project schedules just trying to get all the paperwork together.
Make sure you’ve got these details, provide a training at kickoff, and reinforce throughout the project and regular standup or safety meetings and you’ll keep your project on track and ensure you’re reaching the project sustainability goals.
