Contractors Guide to Green Building Construction: Management, Project Delivery, Documentation, and Risk Reduction

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Contractors Guide to Green Building Construction: Management, Project Delivery, Documentation, and Risk Reduction

Written specifically for contractors, Contractors Guide to Green Building Construction: is a "how-to" book that enables you to meet the challenges of green building construction. You'll discover how constructing environmentally friendly, sustainable buildings influences project management, delivery, documentation, and risk.

List Price $80.00
Website Price $76.00

Author: Thomas E Glavinich, Associated General Contrators
Format: Hardcover
Copyright: 2008
Pages: 288

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Description

Table of Contents

Contractors Guide to Green Building Construction is written for contractors and endorsed by the Associated General Contractors of America.

Written specifically for contractors, this "how-to" book enables you to meet the challenges of green building construction. You'll discover how constructing environmentally friendly, sustainable buildings influences project management, delivery, documentation, and risk. Moreover, the book guides you through these important considerations at all phases of a green construction project, including:

Bidding and contracting.
Managing green design when the contractor works as a design builder.
Subcontracting.
Procurement.
Construction management.
Project commissioning and closeout.

This book is endorsed by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) and was written with the assistance and advice of a specially assembled AGC task force. With a focus on the green building process from the contractor's viewpoint, Contractors Guide to Green Building Construction avoids endorsing any one green building rating system in favor of presenting the business fundamentals common to them all.

Throughout the presentation, flowcharts and other features offer working tools for successfully managing green construction projects. Plus, real-world case studies developed through discussions with the actual contractors involved help you understand exactly what to expect and how to best manage constructing a green building. In short, this is one book that you need to have on hand to be a part of the rapidly growing green building movement.

From the Preface
Today, the state of the environment and our impact on it is a topic of discussion and debate at all levels of government, as well as in the corporate board room and across the table at the local diner. In the past, the focus was on the industrial and transportation sectors of our economy, and commercial and institutional buildings escaped a lot of public scrutiny because they appeared to be benign environmentally. Commercial and institutional buildings do not openly belch smoke, deplete natural resources, use foreign oil, or pollute the land or water supply. However, over the past decades we have become increasingly aware of the amount of energy being consumed by commercial and institutional buildings and the impact that their construction and operation has on our environment. Even though they do not openly appear to contribute to the environmental problems that we face today, their construction and operation results in all of the aforementioned environmental impacts as we clear land for their construction, use precious natural resources to manufacture the materials used to construct them, dispose of all sorts of waste throughout their life, and use fossil fuels directly in the form of natural gas or indirectly in the generation of electricity to operate them. The importance of the commercial sector and commercial and institutional buildings to our economy will grow in the future as the United States continues its shift from a manufacturing and industrial-based economy to a service economy, which will compound the problem if we do not take action today.

Economic growth is the key to improving our quality of life in the United States, and we will need to continue to build and operate commercial and institutional buildings in the future. We need these buildings to support our growing population and to provide healthy and productive environments for people to live, work, and play. Reconciling the seemingly opposing goals of improving the environment and providing the needed infrastructure to support economic growth is the genesis of the green building movement. The green building movement is simply about being mindful of the potential impact that the construction and operation of commercial and institutional buildings will have on the environment and devising innovative strategies to mitigate or eliminate these impacts. This means changing the way we think about buildings and their construction and operation as well as the integration of new state-of-the-art technologies into buildings. In short, we are finding that we can have our cake and eat it too. Today, building owners, designers, manufacturers, and contractors are focused on achieving increasingly environmentally friendly and energy- efficient buildings, with the ultimate goal of producing environmentally and energy-neutral buildings in the not-too-distant future. The green building movement will provide new opportunities and challenges for contractors as high-performance buildings move into the mainstream and become the norm in the United States.

Helping contractors recognize and address the challenges of green building construction is what this book is all about. Green buildings are as much about construction as they are about design. Green designs must be implemented and documented by the contractor for the building to become a reality and achieve its potential. Sustainable building design and construction can impact the contractor's material and equipment procurement, sequencing and scheduling of work, jobsite productivity, and commissioning and closeout activities. Green requirements may impact not only the direct costs of construction, but also project and home office overhead resulting from increased administrative, documentation, and commissioning requirements. All of these potential impacts must be recognized and accounted for when bidding, contracting for, constructing, and closing out a green building project.

The purpose of this book is to provide the contractor with a guide to effectively bidding, contracting for, constructing, and closing out a green building project. This book is focused on the green building process from the contractor's viewpoint and its potential impact on project management, delivery, documentation, and risk. This book is not about green design or the ins or outs of any particular green building rating system that have already been addressed in many other publications. Instead, this book is focused on the contractor's business and construction processes and how they may be affected by green construction. This book addresses the overall construction process, including understanding green project requirements for bidding, contracting for green construction, managing green design when the contractor is operating as a design-builder, subcontracting on green projects, green procurement, managing green construction, and green project commissioning and closeout. It is our hope that the information contained in this book will help contractors who are new to the green building market enter it more confidently, and provide contractors who are already working in this market with new insights that will help them reduce their risk and be more competitive.

The green building market is an emerging market, and this book represents a snapshot. of this new market today and contractors' experiences to date. The green building market will continue to evolve as more public and private building owners demand high-performance buildings and that their commitment to the environment be recognized through green building certification. Existing green building rating systems will continue to change, and new rating systems will emerge as sustainable buildings become increasingly mainstream, our understanding of what makes a green building continues to evolve, and new design and construction techniques, materials, equipment, and systems become available. Also, government agencies at all levels are beginning to require that public and private buildings under their jurisdiction be certified or certifiable using a specified third-party green building rating systems. This is an exciting time in the building industry, with many changes and opportunities for contractors. However, to be successful, contractors must keep up with the rapid pace of change in order to compete in this emerging market.

Thomas E. Glavinich, D.E., P.E.
The University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas

About the Authors
Thomas E Glavinich, DE, PE, is Associate Professor for the Schools of Engineering and Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Kansas. Prior to joining the University of Kansas, he worked in the design and construction of commercial, industrial, and institutional facilities. Mr. Glavinich is the past president of the ASCE Architectural Engineering Institute and a Fellow of the Institute.
Associated General Contractors of America, founded in 1918, is the largest and oldest construction trade association in the U.S., composed of over 33,000 members that include general contractors and specialty contractors as well as suppliers and service providers.