3 Common Mistakes LEED Project Managers Make By Brenda Martens

I was recently invited to participate on a panel of LEED Project Managers at an event hosted by Recollective Consulting, a green building firm in Vancouver BC. Panellists were asked to share their tips, tricks and lessons on LEED Project Management, and while this is a Canadian perspective, the principles hold true across the border. The following are my top three lessons learned, in reverse order (David Letterman style):

 3. Too narrow a view of LEED. The rating system is open to interpretation, but I have often observed green building consultants in meetings state with confidence what is and isn’t allowed, based on what’s written in the reference guides. As one of the editors of the LEED Canada reference guides I can say that they were not intended to (nor could they possibly) cover all scenarios that might arise on a project. There is a reason that the “intent” of each credit and prerequisite comes before the technical requirements – it describes the overarching goal to be pursued – and its possible to meet the intent of the credit in a manner that couldn’t either be foreseen, or included, in the rating system. Design and construction practitioners can be creative in how they meet the intent (I don’t mean “creative” like “creative accounting” on your tax return). As an example, the University of Victoria uses “recycled” aquarium water from one of their fresh water fish research facilities to offset potable water use for irrigation and toilet-flushing on their campus. Of course aquarium water is not listed as an alternative water source in LEED. Similarly, the Surrey Transfer Station, one of the first projects in British Columbia to certify under LEED, used the light entering from their large overhead doors to meet the requirements for daylight in the space. This is something that is specifically disallowed in LEED, because doors can be closed and the access to daylight is lost – however the Transfer Station has a policy that during operation, the overhead doors must always be open, and the USGBC accepted the policy as proof that the credit intent was met.

 2. Thinking the CaGBC (or USGBC) is a black box. Anyone who works as a LEED Project Manager is familiar with the formal methods of communication with the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC), such as project submissions and Credit Interpretation Requests, or “CIRs”. However the CaGBC is much more approachable than most realize. If you have a question about the rating system and how to apply it to your project, and can’t find the answer in the reference guides, on the web site, or in posted CIRs, you can just send the question to info@cagbc.org (do your homework first, the CaGBC doesn’t appreciate questions from consultants where the answer is obvious). The LEED staff will answer the question if they can, and if they can’t, only then will you be directed to submit a CIR. The same is true of certification submission reviews. While it’s true that the CaGBC review team remains anonymous in order to keep the LEED third party validation credible, if you receive a review and don’t understand one of the comments, you can ask the CaGBC for clarification, and they will liaise with the reviewer on your behalf.

 1. Forgetting that a LEED project is about the people, not the building. In this profession we’re often obsessed with points and building performance. You may be able to achieve a LEED Platinum certification, but if the consultants and contractors who worked on the project are disenchanted with the process, or the facilities manager who inherits the building isn’t consulted on the building systems during design and subsequently doesn’t manage these systems properly, then we’ve failed. Its more important to have the people who work on the project buy-in to sustainability than to achieve the highest level of certification, because those people will continue on to work on other projects, and their past experience will determine whether they embrace green building, or try to convince an owner it isn’t worth it. While it’s a joy to work on projects and see skeptics become advocates of green building, it’s heartbreaking to see the mismanagement of the process turn people away from sustainable design and construction.

 I hope these observations will be helpful to those who are navigating their way through LEED projects, and that while sitting in that meeting talking about the score card, you remember the spirit in which the rating system was intended to be used – one of creativity, openness and inclusivity.

Creative Collaboration Course

If you would like to explore the theory and practice of creativity and group collaboration there is an exciting opportunity to do so in a upcoming course offered through UBC.  The course Creative Collaboration offers practical advice and exercises on how to increase both personal creativity, and the creative output of teams – The theories and exercises can be applied to anything from creating a company human resources policy, to brainstorming new product and service offerings, to the conception of complex projects involving multiple disciplines.
You can expect to learn:

• Facilitation skills and techniques
• How to create an environment that promotes creativity
• How to trigger new ideas
• Brainstorming: What works, and what doesn’t

 

This course has a focus on sustainability but crosses the boundaries of discipline and industry, and is ideal for individuals who work in teams for idea generation, problem solving and design.  There is a discount for early registration until October 22 for this 18-hour course using the coupon code CREATES13.

 

Go to http://cstudies.ubc.ca/a/Course/Creative-Collaboration/UP734/  for more details and to register, or call 604.822.1444Course title: Creative Collaboration

 

Location: UBC Robson Square

Dates: Oct 29 – Nov 14, Tuesdays & Thursdays (6 sessions)
Time: 6:00pm – 9:00pm

Pacific Carbon Distrust

In the spring of 2011 a good friend and I were talking about carbon neutrality and all good progressive things green building. He mentioned to me his frustration with the BC government’s Pacific Carbon Trust, and how it was using public sector funds to support carbon reduction in the private sector. At the time I couldn’t and didn’t want to believe it. Not just because I supported the carbon strategy by the BC Liberals but because the plan was the first of its kind.

 BC was the first place in North America to institute a carbon tax in 2007 and was also the first to take progressive and sustainable steps to become carbon neutral. Everyone in the environmental movement supported the move and when the opposing NDP government attacked the plan in the 2009 provincial election as a “gas tax”, few people from the environmental sector came out in support of the NDP. It’s still my belief that it drove many NDP voters to either the Green Party or the Liberals in fear that this ground-breaking move would somehow be overturned. No other elected government had the guts to start such a thing and even if it was imperfect, few in my circle wanted to see it gone.

 After my conversation in the spring of 2011 I began looking into the claim that hospitals and schools were paying into the private sector to make the BC government carbon neutral. In defence of the government it made some sense. If you are going to become carbon neutral you can’t just move carbon credits around your own organization. They need to come from outside of the institutions that are creating them. There is just something that feels wrong about taking school budget money and giving it to Encana and Ecosystem Restoration Associates. Plus I’ve never found tree planting or under-balancing drilling to be very credible carbon offsets. Most trees planted die (or take 50 years to sequester carbon) and anything to do with the oil and gas industry and carbon offsetting is something I meet with suspicion (perhaps unfounded, but there regardless).

 So, that spring I wrote a letter to the auditor general stating my concerns. I received a very nice reply that they completed an audit of the Pacific Carbon Trust (the body tasked with spending public sector dollars towards carbon neutrality), and that they would complete one each year. Now I’m certain that I wasn’t the only one that sent them this information, so it was rewarding to hear this morning that they came out with the report that many of us who would have written the auditor general would have expected.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/03/27/bc-carbon-neutral-report.html

 Now the timing of this is all very useful in light of the upcoming May election. It’s probably been known for many years that this was an issue. I have no problem with the politics of it (the issue being leveraged by the NDP), but I’m hoping that the NDP will be sensitive enough to the 2009 lesson of having their vote split to not completely abandon the issue of climate change for political gain.

 There are still very credible ways to achieve carbon neutrality. In my opinion most of those have to do with renewable energy generation, but again that is a hot button political issue with BC Hydro’s claims of already being a climate champion with all their hydroelectricity. We should really look to what the province of Ontario has done with their FIT program (which is focused on renewable energy) to chart a true path towards carbon neutrality. http://fit.powerauthority.on.ca/what-feed-tariff-program

 While the public will likely lose faith in the Pacific Carbon Trust within the coming month, it is my hope that they won’t throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water. World leading provincial carbon neutrality still matters. The carbon tax is still needed. As with all things complicated (like climate change) the devil is in the details.

So Many Lovely Fellows

At the recent launch of Edge Sustainability Consulting we celebrated our very own Brenda Marten’s designation as a LEED Fellow. If you aren’t familiar with the green building designation there is nothing higher when it comes to showing someone’s green building knowledge in North America. Currently the systems starts with Green Associate, follows with Accredited Professional (with one of many specialities) and then only if you have 10 years of experience and are nominated can you become a LEED Fellow.

I was on the consultation committees when the USGBC was coming up with this three tiered system, and protested (along with many others) about the term “fellow” as the highest honour. “Have you ever noticed there seems to be more women in the green building movement than men”, many would say during the calls. It seems that these comments along with common sense fell on deaf ears at the USGBC. While we applaud the USGBC for many progressive steps they still have a long way to go on social issues.

How can such a progressive movement be so far behind when it comes to gender issues? Unfortunately, addressing social issues has generally been a weak point of the green building movement. A few years ago there were more LEED certified prisons in the U.S. than schools. For a long time (before the creation of Minimum Program Requirements) you could certify gas stations, and parking garages as green buildings. When it comes to LEED internationally there is little that address’ working conditions. This is something we take for granted in North America as a government responsibility but not something common in the fastest growing areas for LEED. In India where they have developed a green building rating called GRIHA http://www.grihaindia.org/ there is an entire section devoted to health and well being during construction.

Now with two women becoming the second batch of LEED Fellows in British Columbia (Teresa Coady from B+H and our very own Brenda Martens), it’s time to start advancing more than just environmental sustainability, and remember the reason that we are building this green building movement…people

The Right Fit For B.C

There is no question that solar energy in the form of photovoltaic (PV) panels have come of age. The industry has now been around for several decades with panels having been used in space, on rooftops, and on backpacks.  The real question for people who live in the province of British Columbia is when the provincial government and crown utility (BC Hydro) will take progressive paths towards sustainability like the province of Ontario.

The Ontario Feed In Tariff (FIT) program is modeled after the German program and has been a success from its inception.

 Remember that power outage on the East Coast a few years ago. Most news reports suggest that it was a result of the power grid being overtaxed during the hottest day of the year (image everyone turning on their AC all at once). After that Ontario began thinking about economical ways to address this demand issue. It also could address some aging and GHG intensive production sources (since the creation of FIT they’ve shut down one of their coal plants already). The great thing about PV and AC demand is that when the sun is at it’s hottest, PV is producing it’s peak electrical to catch some of the grids shortfalls.

 In British Columbia we actually have the opposite problem as demand for electricity peaks during the winter months (thanks to cheap electricity everyone uses electric heaters). As a result most of our wet coast won’t benefit as well as Ontario. There are however potential areas where PV could be implemented to great advantage such as the Okanagan. A direct current (DC) connection to major centres (just like our dams) could be accomplished and put BC on the map a place where solar energy becomes part of the utility mix.

 Without investment in solar technologies it’s likely that provinces like Ontario will have all the expertise manufacturing and jobs creation for this rapidly growing industry. Hey Victoria! Check out what’s going on in China and the rest of the world. PV’s explosive growth isn’t years off. It’s happening now. Get on board.