Entries in LEED (9)

Wednesday
10Mar2010

Making Green Make Cents

For our next series of Advisory Board member guest posts, we are asking "What are you working on?"  Advisory Board member Sara Sweeney starts off this week with all of the projects that have been keeping her busy lately.  You can find out more about Sara on the B2S team page.

I feel a little bit like this post is a What I Did on my Summer Vacation post, and that’s kind of fun. 

2009 was by no means a stellar year for most of us. And if Raquel and James had asked me to write this post a year ago, it would have been a pretty short post, stating “trying to get work.” Last year at this time, I was teaching and that was it. However, because of that, because of having no work, it forced me to innovate both myself and my business in ways I did not expect I would need to do. It also opened doors to opportunities I never expected –even if the opportunities took months to come to fruition. Today, I can write that I am quite busy on several different fronts. 

I continue to teach part time at Philadelphia University, which I love. I teach a class on building systems and materials to the sophomores in the Department of Architecture. It’s their first introduction to how buildings go together, how they really work. Not only do I love the class and teaching, I also love the energy of the students and learning from them. It is indeed a win-win scenario. 

On the business front, I have a few LEED consulting projects in the works now. One project is with my former firm, Blackney Hayes Architects and is a new 72,000 sf academic building for Ocean County College. It is my first LEED v3 project and I am very excited to be really getting my head into the new rating system. I have also just started two smaller projects, also LEED v3 projects. One is a small Black Box theater for a CDC in the Kensington Section of Philadelphia, with a very talented young and local firm, ISA, Brian Phillips and Daryn Edwards at the healm. The other project is a new mixed use building for PBCIP, a non-profit neighborhood organization in Camden, NJ. PBCIP wants to build a landmark new sustainable office, retail and training facility at a prominent intersection in the Parkside section of Camden. Once a vibrant industrial city, Camden now has the reputation of being one of the worst cities in the United States. To be part of this project is very exciting. Also exciting is the architecture and engineering firm I am working with, DCM Architect + Engineering, a Camden-based firm headed by Eduardo Guzman and Robert Bensen. Eduardo is one of the most talented and forward-thinking architects I have met, and I can only say the same about Robert, who is a P.E.  

I am also working with strategic partner, Scott Chrisner, of Chrisner Group, on the Home Performance with Energy Star residential energy audit program, as well as offering full service green project management. It is part of the New Jersey Clean Energy program, and being a part of this new program here in New Jersey is very exciting.  

Finally, I am being trained by Bedford Cost Segregation, a company dedicated to providing cost segregation services, to help them out with projects. It is essentially a tax planning strategy to accelerate depreciation deductions and improve cash flow. It is a completely different way to look at a building, since its focus is breaking down the building specific to components which depreciate in 39, 15, and 7 years. The faster a component depreciates, the more money is available in deductions up front. I really wasn’t sure if I’d like the work –I was able to test the waters a few weeks ago on one project. I was surprised at how interesting I find it, and now I am taking the next steps to learn more so I can continue consulting with them. 

Looking at this list, I never would have expected a year ago that this is what I would be working on, nor would I have expected I would be this busy. But I knew I needed to keep at it last year, and it has paid off in the end. Now, I need to get back to work!

Wednesday
03Mar2010

LEED, Living Building Challenge, and the Future of Green Building

Well you can't call us shy with a post title like that. However, we've got the content to back it up this week we've got the first of our two-part interview with Scot Horst and Jason Mclennan. Scot is the Senior VP of LEED at the USGBC and Jason is the CEO of Cascadia and leader of the Living Building Challenge. We were proud to have them join us for a conversation centered on the future green building here in the US and around the world. We're live with part one of our discussion today, look for part two next week.

We'd like to thank Scot and Jason for joining us, and a special shout out to Advisory Board member Elaine Hsieh for pulling this discussion together.

As always the podcast is available right here on the website or subscribe via iTunes.

 

Sunday
28Feb2010

Paralysis By Analysis

Heifer.org is dedicated to solving world hunger. Their organization is not only effective, but they’ve developed a body of intellectual work around philanthropy that’s worth a read, if you’ve never checked them out you should. The organization posts thought pieces under their learning section and one passage really struck me.  I often wonder if the green building sector and more importantly the green building market is stuck in a mode of Paralysis By Analysis (I borrowed the graphic from Heifer.org, thanks). The writers desribe a condition we all know well. We know we should take action...we know how to make things better, but we’re also aware of the risks involved. We calculate the risks at the same time we calculate the benefits.

What if I promise we’ll be LEED Gold certified and we don’t make it?
What if I promise a 40% reduction in energy and we don’t deliver?


Even over at our podcast the very first episode was dedicated to managing client expectations and protecting building pros through professional liability. Our caution can lead to inaction, no one wants to over promise on green results. Cautious soft language dominates our websites and our literature. Statements like...(and I’m not quoting from anyone in particular here)

Gains in efficiency will significantly reduce energy consumption and therefore carbon footprint. 

Tepid. Uninspiring. Why Bother? This language makes our potential clients less enthusiastic about jumping into sustainability.


Couple that kind of language with conflicting reports in the media about the best initiatives in the industry, like LEED and Energy Star. Stories like these only foment cycles of misinformation and lead to further paralysis. Am I saying LEED or Energy Star or any competing standard is perfect? Couse not. What I'm saying is they're making progress. Progress should be something we're all after.

Imagine if we’d had the same kind of caution when it came to proliferating say, the automobile or the PC. What if Henry Ford had promised marginal improvement to our daily lives with the automobile? What if Microsoft’s goal had been to put a computer on 20-30% of the desktops in the world? These companies set bold goals. They had big ambitions larger than profit alone. They wanted to fundamentally change the world, change markets and improve people’s lives. Yes, they also stumble, remember the Ford Pinto? Remember Windows Vista?  Big companies with bold goals sometimes fail, but we must fail forward. Has the building industry created so many barriers to success that we are afraid to set bold goals? Are we afraid to change the world? Are we too afraid too fail forward?

There are some that will say the industry doesn't lack big vision. It lacks a big market. The argument goes something like:

There is no incentive (particularly in this economy) for building owners in the commercial world to take up the cause. They will lease their buildings to businesses and continue to make a profit on their building stock whether or not they improve it for the betterment of their clients, the nation, the globe or whoever.

To those people I would remind them of two things...

First, the buildings that are the most efficient, productive, healthy and well designed i.e. the best buildings will be leased first and at higher rates. Period.

Second, I would also quote the great Henry Ford...

The highest use of capital isn't to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life. 

So how bold should we be...

I can’t speak for the industry, but I can tell you Build2Sustain’s North Star Goal:

To make every commercial space in the United States sustainable.


Northstar goals are big and open ended by nature, but if we don’t start pursuing them...
 
Who will?

Friday
12Feb2010

The Power of the Retrofit

We tweeted this the other day, but I thought it was worth more attention. Build2Sustain seeks to become a leader in sustainable retrofit and renovation for commercial spaces. This story is a prime example of what's possible with intelligent retrofit.

Caterpillar Headquarters in Peoria Ill. underwent a retrofit focused on efficiency. Here are some of the highlights:

-Caterpillar’s headquarters will save about $800,000 a year in energy costs.

-Tom Gerike, Engineering Project Team Leader, provided the following: Previously, the building’s annual energy usage of electricity and natural gas was 111,591 MMBTU. Now, it uses 60,622 MMBTU.

Some Key Retrofit Features:

From Gerike:

There was no night setback in place for HVAC equipment or for lights,” he said, adding that consistent setpoints were established at 70 degrees in the heating season and 76 degrees in the cooling season.

From The Environmental Leader Article:

For lighting automation, the new system has smart breaker panels controlled by a lighting schedule with pushbutton overrides for common areas. Also, motion sensors were installed into private offices and conference rooms.

As a result of these improvements the site earned LEED Gold Certification. What's missing from this story is project ROI and payback periods of the renovation. We're working to get that info and hopefully will have it for you soon. In the meantime, for more on the retrofit, read the entire story at Environmental Leader or see Caterpillar's Press Release for more.

Wednesday
10Feb2010

Energy Reporting: Are You Ready?

Advisory Board member, Chris Hill, joins us this week to share what's on his mind.  You can find out more about Chris on the B2S team page.

I have discussed the issue of benchmarking and energy reporting on several occasions here at Construction Law Musings.  As the January 18, 2010 issue of ENR Magazine discusses, now cities and states are getting on board in a big way.

Washington, D.C. began requiring building owners to use the EPA Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool on January 1, 2010 and New York City passed a similar measure in December.  The D.C. law is the first to require mandatory public disclosure of energy performance.  Such disclosure will create a public database of energy performance data.

While I understand that this data and its reporting will create energy accountability in a way that non-disclosure of this data would not, the possibilities for misuse or uses that impact the construction world abound.  This energy reporting is a step beyond that of the LEED program in that the data is not just reported to the USGBC, but to a public database.  As such, the ease of access will impact contracts and contractors in an even bigger way than the USGBC requirements.

As I have stated before, the problem of human interaction with buildings, and the time horizons for such reporting, create potential contractual liability for general contractors and architects that must be addressed. These must be addressed even sooner than anticipated because of the governmental actions making these issues even more time critical.

The temptation here would be to rail against the governmental action taken with what are likely the best of intentions or to decide to ignore these issues.  However, despite my Eeyore like tendencies, I am fully behind the sustainable enterprise and would rather work to deal with the inevitability of such actions through the careful drafting of contracts and green leases, and the use of great companies like Build2Sustain.   The use of these tools and resources with the proper guidance  can properly allocate the risks among owners, contractors, architects and tenants in a way that allows for the careful yet steady move toward a more sustainable and energy efficient built space.

In short (if it is not way too late for such an introduction to this sentence), energy reporting is here to stay, we just need to learn to deal with the risks brought on by these new requirements to assure that the goal, sustainable building, will be reached.

 

Monday
25Jan2010

Managing Clients' Green Expectations

LEED certification from the USGBC has done more to promote sustainable building practices in the US than any other force of the last decade. For some, the LEED program is indeed the equivalent of green building and design. So if LEED is the future and is a value add for clients shouldn’t architects and engineers advocate for certification? Recently, Stephen Del Percio outlined this argument in his blog post he pits two schools of thought against one another. The first is advocated by green building rock star Jerry Yudelson, who this past September gave two keynotes at a event sponsored by Central Texas Green Building Council. As quoted in the press release Yudelson presented the following:

clear evidence that high-level green outcomes add significant value to buildings.

“...What part of a 30 percent increase in value from LEED certification is hard to communicate?...You are doing your clients a disservice by letting them build projects without LEED certification,’ he said. ‘It almost amounts to dereliction of your duty as professionals....”

These quotes demonstrate Mr. Yudelson’s clear belief that it is the responsibility of architects and designers to advocate for LEED certification, under the guise that it is a clear value-add when designing a new building.

For his part, in the same blog post Del Percio, discusses why attorneys caution against such advocacy:

First, the design professional who functions as an advocate, extolling the promises of increased energy efficiency, asset values, and rental premiums of LEED-certified buildings is creating a corresponding high expectation in the eyes of his or her client.

...insurance coverage implications of the Energy Ace LEED certification “guarantee.” Unbridled green building advocacy could also provide an insurance carrier with the argument that the design professional has provided the functional equivalent of a guarantee- either LEED certification, performance, or otherwise- that might give the carrier grounds to deny coverage for negligence claims arising out of the project...

Build2Sustain’s blog always seeks to explore the issues important design/build pros. We feel it’s important to drill into these issues in more depth. So we’ve asked Stephen Del Percio and Shari Shapiro to be part of our first ever podcast. The podcast will discuss green certification and managing client expectation. We’re thrilled to be recording the podcast later this week for release next month.

In the meantime, we throw the comment section open to you. Architects-do you advocate for LEED certification in your design practice? Attorneys, what are the risks involved to advocating green building practices broadly and certification specifically? The best comments and questions will be used in our discussion with Stephen and Shari later this week.

 

 

Monday
16Nov2009

Financial Services and Sustainability

I am away this week in Japan. But in the wee hours of the far east morning, I've been thinking about financing the future of green building. After the financial system's collapse at the end of last year and the aftermath we've been dealing with since, everyone is rethinking how financial services should work. The market is incredibly risk adverse at the moment after a decade of incredible risk taking, leading to calamity. As the market levels back out, I wonder if there aren't new metrics the financial services industry should think about when considering commericial loans in the future, specifically when it comes to commericial real estate. 

Should the sustainability of a given project, be it a new build or a renovation be considered when a financial services company considers lending? Understand I don't mean the government should mandate such parameters, rather, would the smartest financial service companies partner with the most sustainable projects? There are some compelling arguments that say yes, like sustainable projects tend to hold higher real estate values on the market. There are also complications, by what metric should a bank or lending institution judge sustainablity? Solely basing such a decision on LEED rating seems unfair, but there needs to be an objective measure, what should it be? I'm not an expert in this field, so what are your thoughts? Spead the word on this one to professionals you know in the financial services space. I'm interested in knowing what they think about the future of the commerical real estate industry.

 

PS the image above is Tokyo, where I am at the moment, for no reason other than that's where I am at the moment.

 

Tuesday
18Aug2009

Getting a "C"

First of all, if you are a regular visitor to the Build2Sustain website, THANKS! We're sorry for some of the changes in design, we're working on a new layout and a stronger landing page, so things might be a little wonky for a bit. As always, we'd love your feedback.

Enough about us-let's talk about rating systems, or more specifically a new rating system from ASHRAE. I came across this article from DJC Oregon, its worth a read all on it's one. The article describes the current war of the rating systems between Energy Star and ASHRAE. Energy Star has a pass/fail system for being in the 75th percentile or above for energy effiency. Whereas the new ASHRAE system will grade with a letter system to exemplify the best performers with higher grades. As always we have no great devotion to any specific code but there were some specific quotes from the article that caught my eye.

Building EQ (the new ASHRAE system) focuses solely on energy, unlike Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, which considers other factors. As such, Building EQ will appeal to building owners who wouldn’t consider LEED, said Louis Starr, a commissioning agent for Heery.

“I’ve seen schools say, ‘We want to do something about energy efficiency, but we don’t want to go through the LEED process because it costs a lot and a lot of it doesn’t relate specifically to energy efficiency,’ ” Starr said.

This is the crux of what I was trying to say with yesterday's post. LEED is an excellent rating system and presents real thought leadership. But it's not always the right fit for a given client. As design/build professionals it's our responsibility to steer our clients toward the best long term solution for them and the environment. I'm happy to see national organizations working to create more intelligent and more stringent rating systems. This last quote codifies the spirit of competition more rigorous rating can engender.

...the competitive nature of the grading scale could easily leave Energy Star in the dust.

“We all know what it feels like to get a ‘C,’ ” Kane said. “And we all know we want to do better.”

What's your take? The comment section awaits.