February 2, 2004
Easy being green | A new standard in environmentally sustainable building offers opportunities
By Taylor Smith
Gunnar Hubbard jokes that he's working himself out of a job. As a "green building" consultant, Hubbard helps contractors, developers and architects create buildings that are as environmentally and occupant friendly as possible. Since opening his Portland-based construction consulting firm, Fore Solutions, in early 2003, Hubbard's been swamped with projects from as far away as London and New York, and as close as Falmouth's Mackworth Island.
But as the green concept becomes more mainstream, Hubbard sometimes thinks that green building will eventually become the industry standard ˆ leaving him no clients left to consult.
Hubbard's job may be safe for now, but green building is gaining a foothold, both nationwide and here in Maine. In fact, Gov. John Baldacci in November signed into effect an executive order that all design, construction, operation and maintenance of any new or expanded state buildings must conform to the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design standards, commonly referred to as LEED.
While big-time industry changes might send chills down the spines of some the state's developers, architects and contractors, Baldacci's order isn't a token effort to appease liberal environmentalists. Nor is it a sign that the local Bureau of Motor Vehicles will start operating out of a sensitively placed solar-powered yurt. Instead, Baldacci's executive order embraces the well-documented benefits of sustainable building methods that have been codified in recent years into the LEED standard. Variables such as indoor air quality, the building's use of natural light and the use of recycled materials are factored into the design and construction process in an effort to minimize the environmental impact and to maximize energy efficiency and the occupants' use of the building. "It's here to stay," says Hubbard of the green building concept. "It just makes too much sense."
The rewards of doing well
The U.S. Green Building Council in the 1990s began the arduous process of setting a standard for green building in the United States. Taking its lead from similar standards in the U.K., the USGBC established the current LEED standard in March 2000. "LEED really helped break projects down into categories like water efficiency, energy efficiency, materials and resources, and indoor air quality," says Richard Graves, an architect with WBRC Architects/Engineers in Bangor who specializes in green design. "Before LEED, discussions would get bogged down by arguments about what building methods are more sustainable."
Best of all, the LEED standard presented the building industry with a unified vision of what it meant to build in an environmentally sustainable manner, including the costs involved. According to the USGBC, LEED certification increases initial construction costs by 2%-7%, including the $1,500-$7,500 in certification fees charged by the USGBC.
But the LEED standard, and green building practices in general, suggest that a building's initial cost is just a small percentage of its true cost. Advocates recommend looking at a building's life cycle to see the real benefit of green building. An October 2003 report to California's Sustainable Building Task Force found that the energy savings in a green building over a 20-year period equals roughly $5.79 per square foot, compared to the $4 per square foot premium for using green building methods. The lesson? Being green can pay potentially healthy dividends down the line.
"Such a huge percentage of a building's costs over its life are operational and energy costs," says Beth Nagusky, director of the Maine Office of Energy Independence and Security. "Even if there are incremental costs, you can reduce your exposure tremendously by building it right."
Green building advocates also point out the productivity benefits of LEED-certified buildings. The California report included a whopping $55.33 per square foot in productivity and health value savings for the highest LEED certification levels, gold and platinum. Reason: Better indoor air quality reduces sickness and allergies, and more natural lighting can help boost worker productivity. "If you can boost productivity by just a couple of percentage points, that just makes sense economically," says Richard Renner, a Portland-based architect who specializes in green building design.
Though no LEED-certified buildings have been completed in Maine, a number of projects across the state are in the works, including a new building for the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf on Mackworth Island in Falmouth. Elaine Clark, director of Maine's Bureau of General Services, notes that the $1.7 million budget for the Baxter School building factors in a premium of 7% ˆ roughly $120,000 ˆ to meet LEED standards. "It's incrementally more expensive, but it'll pay itself back in a very short period or time," says Clark.
The building, designed by Nancy Barba of Barba Architecture and Preservation in Portland, and built by HE Callahan Construction in Auburn, sits on the footprint of a pair of buildings that were recently torn down. The wood and steel from those buildings was processed at the site and recycled for use as the base of a new parking lot. The new building, slated for a September completion date, will boast a lighting design that takes advantage of natural daylight to reduce energy costs. "We wanted to create a pleasant environment so that the students are connected with the outdoors and with natural light," says Clark. The building's "light-shelf" system uses special reflective fixtures to diffuse natural daylight around the classrooms, boosting energy efficiency by reducing the need for electric lighting.
The light-shelf system also helps deaf and hearing-impaired students by creating a better visual environment to understand sign language. "It's an interesting project because we're able to meet the specific needs of the students while making the building energy efficient," says Clark. Hubbard, who is the green consultant on the Baxter School project, estimates that the total energy savings will be 25% over the standard energy code, and that the lighting system will be twice as efficient as traditional lighting.
"An enormous competitive advantage"
Though there's an increasing number of LEED-accredited architects and designers around the state who can oversee a certification effort (35 at last count, according to the USGBC), Baldacci's executive order doesn't require state construction projects to become LEED certified. Instead, the buildings ˆ whether new construction or renovation ˆ are required only to incorporate the LEED standards developed by the USGBC. "The governor didn't want to exclude any designers from state projects," explains Clark. "He wanted to even the playing field, and give the market a chance to catch up and get trained."
But designers aren't alone: Contractors and builders are integral to the LEED building process, too. "There's a shift in thinking in terms of construction site management [in addition to the actual building under construction]," says Hubbard. That means contractors adhering to LEED standards need to pay special attention to such factors as waste management and job-site air quality. "Contractors need to know to cover up a duct that's near a chop saw, or to not leave bags of cement in ducts, which has happened," he says.
Tom Wright, president of Portland-based Wright-Ryan Construction, is currently building the 23,000-square-foot addition to the University of Southern Maine's John Mitchell Center in Gorham to LEED specifications. He notes that educating every subcontractor about LEED standards on an $8 million project is very difficult ˆ especially when Wright-Ryan has to evaluate each subcontractor's bid in a short amount of time. "Qualified subcontractors are hard to find in Maine because there hasn't been a lot of [LEED construction]," he says.
Even so, opportunities are growing for Maine's building industry as more state buildings and commercial buildings employ LEED standards. And builders and architects are confident that the industry's skills will grow along with the demand for such buildings. "There are a lot of extremely sophisticated builders in Maine who are attentive to the market," says Renner, the Portland-based architect. "They can easily take on the needed skill sets as [green building] becomes more accepted and demanded. And having that kind of experience and education will give a builder an enormous competitive advantage."
But as the green concept becomes more mainstream, Hubbard sometimes thinks that green building will eventually become the industry standard ˆ leaving him no clients left to consult.
Hubbard's job may be safe for now, but green building is gaining a foothold, both nationwide and here in Maine. In fact, Gov. John Baldacci in November signed into effect an executive order that all design, construction, operation and maintenance of any new or expanded state buildings must conform to the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design standards, commonly referred to as LEED.
While big-time industry changes might send chills down the spines of some the state's developers, architects and contractors, Baldacci's order isn't a token effort to appease liberal environmentalists. Nor is it a sign that the local Bureau of Motor Vehicles will start operating out of a sensitively placed solar-powered yurt. Instead, Baldacci's executive order embraces the well-documented benefits of sustainable building methods that have been codified in recent years into the LEED standard. Variables such as indoor air quality, the building's use of natural light and the use of recycled materials are factored into the design and construction process in an effort to minimize the environmental impact and to maximize energy efficiency and the occupants' use of the building. "It's here to stay," says Hubbard of the green building concept. "It just makes too much sense."
The rewards of doing well
The U.S. Green Building Council in the 1990s began the arduous process of setting a standard for green building in the United States. Taking its lead from similar standards in the U.K., the USGBC established the current LEED standard in March 2000. "LEED really helped break projects down into categories like water efficiency, energy efficiency, materials and resources, and indoor air quality," says Richard Graves, an architect with WBRC Architects/Engineers in Bangor who specializes in green design. "Before LEED, discussions would get bogged down by arguments about what building methods are more sustainable."
Best of all, the LEED standard presented the building industry with a unified vision of what it meant to build in an environmentally sustainable manner, including the costs involved. According to the USGBC, LEED certification increases initial construction costs by 2%-7%, including the $1,500-$7,500 in certification fees charged by the USGBC.
But the LEED standard, and green building practices in general, suggest that a building's initial cost is just a small percentage of its true cost. Advocates recommend looking at a building's life cycle to see the real benefit of green building. An October 2003 report to California's Sustainable Building Task Force found that the energy savings in a green building over a 20-year period equals roughly $5.79 per square foot, compared to the $4 per square foot premium for using green building methods. The lesson? Being green can pay potentially healthy dividends down the line.
"Such a huge percentage of a building's costs over its life are operational and energy costs," says Beth Nagusky, director of the Maine Office of Energy Independence and Security. "Even if there are incremental costs, you can reduce your exposure tremendously by building it right."
Green building advocates also point out the productivity benefits of LEED-certified buildings. The California report included a whopping $55.33 per square foot in productivity and health value savings for the highest LEED certification levels, gold and platinum. Reason: Better indoor air quality reduces sickness and allergies, and more natural lighting can help boost worker productivity. "If you can boost productivity by just a couple of percentage points, that just makes sense economically," says Richard Renner, a Portland-based architect who specializes in green building design.
Though no LEED-certified buildings have been completed in Maine, a number of projects across the state are in the works, including a new building for the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf on Mackworth Island in Falmouth. Elaine Clark, director of Maine's Bureau of General Services, notes that the $1.7 million budget for the Baxter School building factors in a premium of 7% ˆ roughly $120,000 ˆ to meet LEED standards. "It's incrementally more expensive, but it'll pay itself back in a very short period or time," says Clark.
The building, designed by Nancy Barba of Barba Architecture and Preservation in Portland, and built by HE Callahan Construction in Auburn, sits on the footprint of a pair of buildings that were recently torn down. The wood and steel from those buildings was processed at the site and recycled for use as the base of a new parking lot. The new building, slated for a September completion date, will boast a lighting design that takes advantage of natural daylight to reduce energy costs. "We wanted to create a pleasant environment so that the students are connected with the outdoors and with natural light," says Clark. The building's "light-shelf" system uses special reflective fixtures to diffuse natural daylight around the classrooms, boosting energy efficiency by reducing the need for electric lighting.
The light-shelf system also helps deaf and hearing-impaired students by creating a better visual environment to understand sign language. "It's an interesting project because we're able to meet the specific needs of the students while making the building energy efficient," says Clark. Hubbard, who is the green consultant on the Baxter School project, estimates that the total energy savings will be 25% over the standard energy code, and that the lighting system will be twice as efficient as traditional lighting.
"An enormous competitive advantage"
Though there's an increasing number of LEED-accredited architects and designers around the state who can oversee a certification effort (35 at last count, according to the USGBC), Baldacci's executive order doesn't require state construction projects to become LEED certified. Instead, the buildings ˆ whether new construction or renovation ˆ are required only to incorporate the LEED standards developed by the USGBC. "The governor didn't want to exclude any designers from state projects," explains Clark. "He wanted to even the playing field, and give the market a chance to catch up and get trained."
But designers aren't alone: Contractors and builders are integral to the LEED building process, too. "There's a shift in thinking in terms of construction site management [in addition to the actual building under construction]," says Hubbard. That means contractors adhering to LEED standards need to pay special attention to such factors as waste management and job-site air quality. "Contractors need to know to cover up a duct that's near a chop saw, or to not leave bags of cement in ducts, which has happened," he says.
Tom Wright, president of Portland-based Wright-Ryan Construction, is currently building the 23,000-square-foot addition to the University of Southern Maine's John Mitchell Center in Gorham to LEED specifications. He notes that educating every subcontractor about LEED standards on an $8 million project is very difficult ˆ especially when Wright-Ryan has to evaluate each subcontractor's bid in a short amount of time. "Qualified subcontractors are hard to find in Maine because there hasn't been a lot of [LEED construction]," he says.
Even so, opportunities are growing for Maine's building industry as more state buildings and commercial buildings employ LEED standards. And builders and architects are confident that the industry's skills will grow along with the demand for such buildings. "There are a lot of extremely sophisticated builders in Maine who are attentive to the market," says Renner, the Portland-based architect. "They can easily take on the needed skill sets as [green building] becomes more accepted and demanded. And having that kind of experience and education will give a builder an enormous competitive advantage."
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