Sustainable Services

Construction Services Vendors Rolling With Changing Times

As green building practices become the norm, providers of various construction services have been forced to get with the program.

Rising energy prices, concerns about global warming and a raft of green building legislative initiatives are moving sustainable building practices into the mainstream. This growth in green building is triggering expansion and changes in the construction services sector, namely in the areas of consulting, commissioning, and legal services.

Consulting

Green building consulting services have developed to help manage the green building process and facilitate LEED certification. Their roots can be traced to early efforts to address energy efficiency and indoor air quality.

advertisement

But it was the advent of LEED that allowed the industry to evolve to the next level and provided a framework to make it viable, says Scott Chrisner, founder of the Chrisner Group a Hamilton, N.J.-based green building consulting firm.

A typical green building consulting engagement—also called GBC—starts early in the design process with a discussion of alternative environmental strategies with the project team. Green specifications are developed based on the strategies selected.

The GBC then monitors construction and reviews submittal documents to ensure adherence to the specifications. At project completion, the GBC helps assemble the LEED package for submittal to the US Green Building Council.

“Our role is akin to a green owners rep,” says Pamela Lippe, president of New York-based E4 Inc. “We help manage the process for the owner. If everything waits until the end if becomes more expensive.”

Chrisner sees his role as a LEED choreographer, setting up the systems that outline the steps for the project team to follow. His firm acts as a centralized hub to help team members with the process and its documentation.

Experienced LEED project teams may require less comprehensive support. In these instances, GBCs may provide specialized analysis or serve in an advisory role, says Adrian Tuluca, principal with Viridian Energy & Environmental of Norwalk, Conn.

Specialized services include brainstorming sessions reviewing alternatives, updates on the latest products and technologies, daylighting analyses and energy modeling, Tuluca says.

“Currently the demand for green is moving fast, and the demand for our basic services is increasing,” he adds. He says that over the long run, the demand will shift to technical advice and advisory services.

Tuluca also sees the industry expanding its service offerings. Large firms are now seeking help to develop companywide policies for green building, he says.

Companies are also becoming interested in determining the amount of carbon embodied in a building, and there should be a demand for this type of analysis in the future, Tuluca says “But right now people are not prepared to pay the cost,” he adds.

Lippe says she is increasingly finding firms interested in applying for LEED on existing buildings. Last summer her firm developed service offerings to address the sector.

Commissioning

Building commissioning firms also benefit from the growth in green building. Commissioning is a quality-control process ensuring a building’s equipment and systems are installed and operate according to the design intent. The process is now required to achieve LEED certification.

“The industry has exploded,” says Ian Graham, associate principle at Viridian Energy & Environmental. “LEED really put commissioning on the map.”

Steve Joern, director of commissioning services at Genesys Engineering, Pehlam, N.Y., estimates his firm’s building commissioning business has double because of LEED.

Components of the LEED commissioning process include design reviews, development of commissioning requirements and implementation plans, verification of the installation and performance of systems and a final report.

Many projects are opting for enhanced commissioning to gain an additional LEED point. Enhanced commissioning requires design reviews earlier in the process, submittal reviews, a recommissioning manual and a postoccupancy review carried out before critical equipment warranties expire, Joern says.

Michael English, senior partner with Horizon Engineering of New York, estimates 90% of his clients are going for the extra point.

But while LEED is raising the profile of building commissioning, English says he worries that the LEED commissioning requirements have “watered down” the process.

The USGBC permits sampling of certain types of devices, such as heat pumps in residential buildings, instead of testing of all devices, and “this leaves open a wide area of potential flaws,” English says.

The USGBC also permits buildings to get certified before the commissioning process is completed.

Skilled commissioning professionals are getting harder to find, and becoming skilled in the process takes time. “The problem is there is a lot of demand and not a lot of seasoned companies,” Graham says.

Currently the USGBC doesn’t require a certification process for commissioning consultants. “Every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to be a commissioning provider because of the way the industry is being driven,” English says. “Whether or not they are qualified remains to be seen.”

Larger engineering firms wanting a bigger role in the market are seeking to acquire commissioning firms, Joern says. “Engineering firms are finding that commissioning is more than sending an engineer out with punch lists and doing inspections,” he adds.

Legal Services

Law firms serving the construction industry are starting to set up green building practices and staffing attorneys who specialize in sustainable design and construction law.

To date, green building construction lawyers are focused on drafting contracts and mitigating potential risks and exposures, says Harry McLellan, partner with McLellan & Bialkowski LLC in Paramus, N.J. No litigation in the field has occurred yet, but people see the potential for it.

Litigation could arise if buildings don’t attain the desired LEED certification level. Under conventional contracts owners typically make final payment to construction manager at the completion of construction, but the USGBC may not award certification until many months after certification.

“If the certification level does not come through as expected, the owner is left holding the bag,” McLellan says.

If a particular LEED certification is not attained, owners can face financial losses through the forfeiture of public funding, tax credits, incentive programs or loss of tenants, says Kenneth Block, partner with Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt in New York. “While an owner may wish to hold the architect or contractor responsible for such losses, considerable resistance from the team members can be expected,” he adds.

Block says a more practical approach is to address problems during the course of construction through enforcement of contractual obligations that tie payment of fees to the performance of specific services.

“For example, the failure of the construction manager to submit required documentation for the recycling of materials may be the basis for withholding all or a part of payments due under construction requisitions,” he says. “To the extent that any member of the design team has a contractual obligation to perform specific LEED certification services, final payment should be withheld until those services are complete.”

Design professionals need to be careful that their contracts do not effectively guarantee that projects will reach a specific level of LEED certification, says Stephen Del Percio, associate with New York-based Zetlin & De Chiara. He adds that they should also push for contract language indicating that if they sign documentation in support of specific credits, they are doing so only to satisfy the credit and are not providing any warranty with respect to final certification.

"This is because most professional liability policies will not cover warranties, whether express or implied," Del Percio says.

The American Institute of Architect has started to address sustainable design issues in its new form contracts that contain language defining a scope of services when the owner seeks LEED certification.