What can be done to make this process a little easier?
The more the parties think about the unique nature of a green project and provide for that in the contract documents, the less surprises they’ll have later. There are a couple of tools available now that weren’t available in the not-so-distant past. The first is that we now have people that are certified as LEED professionals. They’ve taken all the testing, they know what the LEED requirements are and have been formally approved as knowledgeable and experienced in the area of green building. The more owners can be involved with LEED professionals, whether they’re architects or lawyers or contractors, the better.
If you’re building a LEED project, you want to work with people that have done it before. We have a client here in town who built their own green office and obviously went through the experience firsthand as an owner and a contractor. That kind of experience would be helpful.
The most cutting-edge tool that’s available now — and wasn’t available even a few months ago — is a uniform nationwide contract document on green building. ConsensusDOCS brought together more than two-dozen construction trade associations, nationwide groups that represent owners, architects and engineers, bonding companies, and contractors and subcontractors to collaborate on and endorse the documents. The ‘ConsensusDOCS 310: Green Building Addendum’ can be found at www.consensusdocs.org. It’s the first national or uniform document that’s been created anywhere to deal with the issues of green building. It’s going to be very helpful because, for the first time, we have a document that says what expectations there will be with all project participants and their various roles.
Don Gregory is chair of the Construction and Litigation practice areas at Kegler, Brown, Hill & Ritter and served on the nationwide taskforce that drafted the Green Building Addendum. Reach him at (614) 462-5416 or [email protected].
