Construction Law in Virginia at Posterous

Advisory Board member, Chris Hill, brings up the legal complications of guarantees in this week's post.  To find out more about Chris, visit the B2S team page.

As I was following some of the posts by friends on Twitter, I came across a post by a consultant that guarantees LEED Certification.  This got me thinking about the myriad issues relating to the third party certification aspect of adding such certification to construction contracts and the relationship of consultants to this process.

Much has already been said, particularly at the Green Building Law Update, a great blog by my friend Chris Cheatham, relating to the queasiness that overcomes a construction attorney at such guarantees.  Many aspects of any "guarantee" need to be clarified.  What about the energy reporting requirements that USGBC has imposed?  Will this, and the seemingly unlimited time horizon of such reporting, be included?   Does any guarantee only kick in at the initial stage and the consultant then is no longer "on the hook?"  What about continued commissioning and the vagaries of later behavior by facilities managers?

Also, the use of third parties as opposed to just USGBC or GBCI "officials" adds to this uneasy feeling I get when looking at this guarantee.  Third party certification adds a new layer to the guarantee.

The issues with this guarantee are much like those that face LEED and other rating systems from both a regulatory and contractual standpoint.  The time horizons and human interaction with a “green” space are risk issues that need to be dealt with before the mindset of the masses can be changed. 

Build2Sustain seeks to change the landscape and debate about green building from one of a “movement” to a practical business directive.  Hopefully this change will encompass a response to these issues.

The energy reporting issues have been discussed at length at Musings and elsewhere, I recommend that you check out that discussion for further thoughts on this issue.

Please share your thoughts on this debate with a comment below.

 

The Revolution? #1

I follow lots of green and sustainable folks on twitter. I read lots of blogs and I check in on linkedin groups and attend conferences. I feel like I'm pretty well versed in the green building space and something keeps coming to me over and over again when I think about our culture and the "green" movement. As a whole we're not undergoing a revolution and we probably never will. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, a paradigm shift in thinking often doesn't lead to a revolution that can be televised. This is the first of a multi-part series of posts here at build2sustain, designed to outline our thinking on the culture of sustainability and how is folds neatly (and sometimes not so neatly) into American values and what we can do in the building and real estate development industries to make sustainable design and building part of our culture. Much of what you are about to read is an amalgamation of thoughts combined in my brain over the past few years of following the sustainable design movement. These thoughts owe as much to Jim Collins, Malcolm Gladwell and Andrew Bacevich as they do to William McDonough, Michael Braungart, and Janine Benyus. I don't think I've quoted any of them directly here, if I have, my sincere apologies. This isn't meant to be a book, a thesis or even a white paper. This is still our blog and discussion is always encouraged.

A great start to a series by James Bedell of Build2Sustain.

Balancing the Board

Friday, October 2, 2009 at 08:10PM

We lean on our advisory board so much to shape our strategy going forward. Our first stepping stone to our pilot project is publishing a white paper (due out in December) The Business Case for Sustainable Renovation what I love about our board is the diverse personalities and philosophies serve as natural counterweights and help us craft our market strategy.

In one corner we have Chris Hill, who's business-case practicality consistently reminds me that the people who will ultimately write the checks for our renovations usually think with their wallets first and we need to make a strong ROI case to them for why this makes sense.

A great outline of the Build2Sustain advisory board of which I am honored to be a part.

Chris Hill, advisory board member, has chosen to share his thoughts with us this week on what brought him to Build2Sustain.

Let me start by saying how honored I am to be a part of the Build2Sustain advisory board. When James Bedell (@jamesbedell on Twitter) first approached me, I was floored.  With all of the other great attorneys out there who deal in the "green building" arena (see the links to some of their sites in my blogroll at Construction Law Musings), my first thought was "Why me?"  At heart, I am a risk manager for construction professionals, not a major "green" advocate in any political sense.

Then James explained the Build2Sustain concept.  In short, B2S is a concept a long time coming.  The plan and method to the B2S "madness" is to make sure that we show the world that sustainable works, both economically and environmentally.  Anyone that hears me talk about sustainable building will hear my "People think with their wallets" approach to the sector, and to sustainable construction.  I firmly believe that if we can show how economically viable sustainability can be, the rest of the benefits will follow.  James explained that this philosophy (for lack of a better word) is one of the underpinnings of the B2S concept.

Please check out Build2Sustain. The project and concept is great and I am honored to be a part of it.

I woke up this morning and went about my normal routine but today was different. I could feel it building inside me. A sense of hope springing forward as I began to think about the generational challenges we are faced with and why this generation, our generation is ready for them. I look at what we can do, and what we are already doing and I realize that we will overcome not just this economic crisis, for those come and go. But we will overcome the crises of education, of health care and of energy within our lifetimes. Before I start to sound like too much of a salesman for the current administration, I want to share why I think our generation-the new professionals are uniquely suited to the age we were born into.

A great post from my friend James Bedell of Build2Sustain fame. Check out the whole post to get your weekend off right.