What IS "Green Building?"
By Charles Popeck

What IS "Green Building?" It's a question that's asked frequently throughout the architecture, engineering and construction industry during the last few years, and our goal at Southwest Contractor is to answer the question in a detailed, contractor-focused manner.

This article is the first in a series about Green Building, the design process, the products involved, and the construction means and methods used to produce a high-quality Green Building. Throughout the series I will highlight the United States Green Building Council's (USGBC) Green Building Rating System called "LEED," an acronym for "Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design." The LEED system is the Green Building standard most commonly used today in the building industry. LEED has organized and condensed into one program all of the information required to design and construct an environmentally stable building. Designers have been using the LEED system to create green buildings since the inception of LEED in 1998, but contractors, engineers, construction managers and subcontractors must become educated on Green Building to compete in this growing market. I will explore the nuts and bolts of the program and present solid, business-based solutions and suggestions for incorporating Green Building into your business.

The progress of Green Building:
Green Building is growing in an exponential manner because it makes sense. It is not rocket science or brain surgery. In fact, most of us have used various Green Building products and techniques throughout our careers without even knowing it. As we progress through this series, you'll realize that you've already been doing things on your jobsite that are required by LEED, like implementing an erosion and sedimentation control plan, construction waste management program, or installing building materials that were acquired locally.

LEED currently accounts for over 3 percent of the commercial building market, and is expected to be at least 8 percent by 2005. Green Building is a growing market that will continue its phenomenal growth well into the future.

Green Building does not cost more!
A green building is a quality building. The up-front costs associated with a high-quality building are often attributed to Green Building in error. Green construction may cost different than traditional construction, but with good reason. Long-term or life-cycle costs are the true costs of a building over its lifetime. In fact, operating and maintenance costs account for over 80 percent of the "cost" of a typical building over its useful life. A Green Building can drastically reduce operating and maintenance costs!.

Just as alternative project delivery methods such as Construction Manager at Risk, Design-Build, and Job Order Contracting require a different, collaborative approach, so does Green Building. The misconception that Green Building is more expensive is an issue that must be addressed. How about now? My experience has been that there are five reasons why a Green Building project would not be successful, including:

Lack of Education
Ignorance leads to misconceptions, misunderstanding, and unnecessarily inflated costs. People are intimidated by things they don't understand. In the construction business, this can lead to poor quality and increased costs. My mission is to educate the industry on Green Building issues and practices with the goal of creating high-performance, energy, water and material-efficient Green Buildings.

Improper planning / starting too late
Failure to implement a proper LEED credit strategy in the early stages of design will lead to poor coordination and increased costs. The best Green Building project is one that combines the proper delivery method (preferably Design-Build or CM @ Risk) with educated, experienced personnel following a specific plan.

If an owner chooses to implement the LEED standard at the Construction Document phase it is probably too late. There will most likely be additional design and preconstruction costs involved. The most successful Green Building projects start with a firm commitment from the owner and proper planning from conceptual design.

Hiring the wrong Design or Construction firm
This can be alleviated at the interview. The proper questions must be asked-and answered effectively in order to build the right green team for your projects. Some questions that may help: