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Sayonara, Sandtraps!

So many news stories give the impression that the “profit” portion of the triple bottom line has the power to trump the other two (people and planet), yet I have found one that bucks the trend.

Growing up in the suburbs of Cleveland in the 1980’s I spent a lot of time at the mall.  Across the road was the Acacia Country Club, which not only kept us riff-raff out through its exclusivity, but also by its topography; the entryway was up a steep hill and the club house and golf course were essentially invisible from street level.  I had no idea what it looked like until this year.  The former private club is now part of the Cleveland Metroparks System, open to the public and being allowed to return to a natural state.  The sand traps and manicured greens are being taken over by plants and wildlife, and it is glorious!

What really makes this an interesting tale is that the story could have easily had a different and more conventional ending.  With the dawn of the 21st Century, Acacia’s membership went into decline, which mirrored private club membership trends nationwide[1].  By 2012 the shareholders knew the club was no longer financially sustainable, and a sale was imminent.  Acacia was well positioned to be sold for development; it was 155-acres strong and not only across the street from the mall of my youth (Beachwood Place), which had survived the Great Recession and even expanded, but by this time it was also across the road from Legacy Village, yet another retail mega-complex (which I have yet to visit, now that my shopaholic days are behind me).

The Conservation Club, a Virginia-based non-profit, offered around $14M for the property, with a plan to deed the property to the Metroparks and a stipulation that it remain public open space.  The City of Lyndhurst made an offer for around $16M, backed by an unnamed developer with a plan to convert the site into mixed-used retail and residential[2].  Counter to the stereotype of private club members, the folks at Acacia decided to go with the lower offer because they actually loved their club, and wanted to extend its legacy by making it a public space.  Remarkable!

On my recent walk (November 2014), I was most moved by the tiny oak trees sprouting out of the former greenways.  They were in full fall color, a deep and rich crimson, hinting at what the landscape will look like in the decades to come.  The sand- and water-traps were delightful, filling in with grasses and, according to my boys, fish and frogs!  Two sides of the park are bounded by busy local roads, four lanes each, yet our visit was undisturbed by noise.  The natural barrier and depth of the site kept the noises from penetrating the serenity, and I think our brains just understood we were in a peaceful place, and allowed our hearing to focus on the wind, the birds, and our feet in the grass.

The tax base of a mixed-use development is undoubtedly more desirable to city officials than a giant park, but I hope that the people of Lyndhurst see Acacia’s value in a new light.  The country club shareholders did a great thing, sacrificing a portion of their own profit for the greater good of sharing their land, and I hope that they will document and share their story with other clubs across the country.  With changes in family structure, use of leisure time, and how we socialize, I can only assume more golf courses will see their end in the near future.  Which amenity do we really want to take over these valuable spaces – more places to shop, or more places to play?

 

[1] http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/business-journal/2014/04/02/country-clubs-adapt-survive/7168837/

[2] http://www.news-herald.com/general-news/20120921/acacia-country-club-members-bittersweet-after-sale-to-conservation-fund-with-video-and-map

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LEED Construction Submittals: Some good, mostly ugly

If there is any ‘glory’ in being a LEED AP, it’s probably on the design side.  That’s where you get to influence the architects and engineers, even the project owner, to wheedle a little more efficiency out of the energy system, or squeeze in a few more bike racks or electric vehicle charging stations.  But from my experience, the LEED AP really earns their keep during the construction phase, making sure that the materials specified are actually used, keeping harmful VOCs out of the building, maximizing recycling of construction waste, and sourcing products with local and recycled content.

Theoretically, no one knows the contract documents better than the contractor, and they know what submittals they need to provide to show compliance.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean they know where to find the information the LEED AP needs, and that can lead to a lot of ‘revise and resubmit’ or even ‘rejected’ submittals that can negatively impact the already tight schedule.  There are two simple steps that contractors can take that will help reduce problems with LEED submittal reviews:

  1. Highlight the LEED-required Data. Most spec sections require product data sheets, MSDS sheets, and LEED data, often in different sub-sections.  Use FoxIt or any other free PDF-editing software to highlight the text or to place a red circle around the data.  Do not scan a hand-highlighted document because it becomes illegible by the time it reaches the LEED AP.
    • For paints, caulks, sealants, or adhesives, submit the MSDS and highlight or circle the VOC g/L of each specific product being used on the project. I have rarely seen a product data sheet that contains the LEED-required data.  DO NOT submit the entire spec section and/or product data sheets in addition to the MSDS.  This is very irritating.
    • For construction waste management, submit a monthly report from your hauler that summarizes the total tons of waste collected by type (i.e., wood, metal, paper, landfill, etc.). DO NOT submit individual load tickets!
    • For recycled and regional content, you may have to do some hunting. Go to the manufacturer’s website and search for data specific to your product; DO NOT submit general information or slick marketing brochures, these will be rejected.
    • Specific to regional content, you need to know where this product is made and from where the raw materials are extracted; in LEED parlance this is ‘extraction’ or ‘harvest.’ You may need to e-mail the manufacturer for this information, but if you don’t try, the project cannot get any credit just for a product being manufactured locally.
    • Remember, it is the contractor’s responsibility to ensure that 10% or 20% of the total value of the materials on your contract (depending on the specs) are recycled and regional content. I recently sent back an asphalt mix as ‘revise and resubmit’ for not having any recycled content; it was not required by the spec but it was allowed, and as the LEED AP I know that if we don’t have recycled content in the concrete and asphalt wherever possible we won’t be able to reach our LEED goals.  Ideally, you reviewed these product options during the bid process, but if you didn’t translate that to your subs then your efforts might be lost, and that can lead to delays or rejections of pay apps.

 

  1. Put “LEED” in the submittal document title. It is common for a submittal to go through multiple people before it gets to the LEED AP; first to the prime contractor, then the construction manager, then the AOR, and finally the LEED AP. By putting LEED right on the submittal cover the AOR knows it should go to the LEED AP.  If you have followed tip #1, you are putting LEED on the cover because you know the submittal contains the exact information required by LEED in the specification.  If you are submitting a product data sheet for compliance with a sub-section in the same spec, do not label it for LEED.

Attached to this post are a couple of examples of ‘good’ LEED submittals showing the required data clearly highlighted.  Remember, making the review easier for the LEED AP saves you time and money down the road; quick approvals keeps schedules on time!

03_Adhesive sample_good

05_Carpet sample_good

 

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LEED AP Credential Maintenance

I finally completed the credentialing maintenance for my LEED AP, now I can add BD&C for more acronym fun.  For those legacy LEED APs still working on yours, I thought I’d share my experience and a few nuggets learned along the way.

For openers, it wasn’t that bad!  I’m sure I should not have procrastinated, but I believe the reporting system has eased a bit since it first launched, and once I took the time to read through the CEM reporting website I finally understood what to do.  Probably the best first step is to click on “Add/Review” in the “Action” column which will take to you a record entry page.  On this page, click on the arrow in “Subcategory.”  This list will tell you what the larger category is looking for (i.e., “Community Connectivity” or “Energy Tradeoffs”).  Use that list to think through your LEED projects and related work, which should result in scores of legitimate CEM hours.

A couple of my LEED projects were completed prior to the start of my CEM reporting period, so I couldn’t count those, but luckily I had a handful of other projects within the reporting period.  I was able to meet most of the LEED Specific requirements pulling from those projects, with the exception of Water and Energy.  An important note if you are a project manager over a large team: if you are not assigned a credit template on a project’s LEED Online record, be sure to get a letter from your LEED Online project administrator testifying to your participation.  I have a colleague who was instrumental in the management of a couple of credits on one of our projects, but since they were not assigned to her, it could be tricky to prove involvement were she to be audited.  For the “just in case” file I am providing her a letter verifying her role.

I had a couple of deep studies that also qualified for general CEM credit, but I didn’t try to overdo it on these – meaning, even though one report took 18 months and resulted in close to 200 pages plus hours of stakeholder meetings and public presentations, I didn’t try to milk it for 10 hours of credit.  In that specific case, I submitted it only for the stakeholder credit for 2 CEM hours.  After I exhausted all of the work experience that I felt qualified for credit, I then looked for online webinars to fill the gaps.

As a business owner by day and full time mom at night, going to evening and weekend seminars just wasn’t going to work for me, at least not for the many hours of credit I still needed to complete.  Thankfully, there are a ton of web-based, GBCI-approved courses that count for CEM credit.  I did pay for a couple, each of those were LEED Specific, but I think if I had hunted more deeply early on I could have done it all for free.  In the end I think I completed eight hours of CEM-eligible courses for free from the comfort of my desk, and paid less than $200 for the other online webinars that also qualified.

These are the resources that I used for finding web-based courses:

  • The GBCI seminar portal is a great site for getting started: http://www.usgbc.org/courses.  My searches were not always successful, keep trying different combinations of terms to find what you’re looking for.  Also important to note – if you click on “purchase” and it fails, this may mean the course you selected is no longer available.  Don’t search for it elsewhere!  I did that, found the course, spent an hour on it, only to learn from the site administrator that it’s been inactive for a year.
  • The quality of webinars on AEC Daily was quite good: http://www.aecdaily.com/
  • This site by McGraw Hill has TONS of articles varying in length and complexity: http://continuingeducation.construction.com/

 

Best of luck!  It feels great to have it completed – I got the confirmation e-mail only one day after submitting.  Now on to the next two-year reporting cycle, but I swear I won’t leave this one to the last minute.  Lesson learned!

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LEED at the Construction Site

If you’re a contractor, or a construction manager, your job is to get a building built – safely, on time and on budget.  But these days, you likely have an additional hard hat to wear – ensuring that the project achieves its LEED rating.  That’s a big responsibility because without the proper documentation, valuable points are in jeopardy.  You undoubtedly face pointed questions at least once a month at the project meetings, if not every week – where are we at with waste management, what’s our recycled percentage, do you have photos of erosion control?  The pressure is on.

So how can you take the pressure off, or at least be confident that you have all the answers?  At Quercus, we think it all comes down to being organized from the very start.  Accepting that you will face a mountain of documentation is the first step, the next step is to implement a system that keeps it all organized regardless of how long it takes to get the project built.  We have a few key recommendations which we hope makes your job easier.

1. Establish a file naming convention.  Did we mention that all of the documents you collect have to be scanned as pdfs so they can be submitted for review online?  Your electronic file is very important and by the time the project is completed, you may have scanned over 100 different documents – MSDS sheets, project data sheets, maps, etc.  We like to start simple with a file for each credit (i.e., MR2, MR4…), and at least include the spec section and the product name.  You may also choose to number the documents as they come in, as there are often more than one per spec section.  Not only is it easy for you to look up data, it also makes it easy for the GBCI reviewer if you include the document number in the LEED template.

2. Maintain a comprehensive tracking sheet.  A client may provide you with a required tracking sheet but if not, definitely make your own.  The set up would include at least the product name, its LEED info (recycled content, regional data, VOCs) but for your purposes should also include the spec section and maybe even the sub you received it from, in case you have to go back for more information.

3. Maintain a photo log.  Certain credits require photo documentation, including date stamps.  By the end of the project you will have hundreds of photos, but only need to provide a representative sample spanning the duration of the project and demonstrating specific activities.  Maintaining a comprehensive log – and updating it monthly – will save you a lot of time and effort when it comes time to submit.

We’ve been in your steel toes, collecting material data from subs who have never dealt with LEED before, and reporting to clients on a monthly basis.  Let us know if we can help you set up your jobsite filing system – you’ll shine and complying with LEED will be just as routine as any other submittal.