Procurement of sustainable construction services in the United States: the contractor’s role in green buildings

Long recognized as a major contributor to global depletion of natural resources, the US construction industry is finally making strides in its efforts to achieve more sustainable building projects. Along the way, design and construction organizations face new challenges and the need to rethink their approach to almost every aspect of their operations. Many are finding that efforts to become more sustainable also create incentives to adopt logical and much needed improvements to the traditional sequential design and construction process. In an industry that has clung to traditions of dysfunctional business practices and adversarial team relationships, many are beginning to realize that sustainable building projects might be more appropriately referred to as sensible building projects. For the purposes of this article, the term “green buildings” has been adopted (i.e. projects in which efforts are made to minimize the environmental impact of construction, and to maximize energy efficiency and the productivity of occupants). Most architecture, engineering and construction organizations agree that the popularity of green buildings will continue to grow, but few have produced definitive conclusions about the impact of this shift on their organizations. The design profession, which has clearly embraced this emerging trend, has largely dominated discussions of green design and construction. However, many owners are finding that construction organizations can also play a key role in green building projects. When the Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) decided to construct a new facility for its US Financial and Customer Service Centres, the TMC Real Estate and Facilities philosophy, “Process Green”, was implemented on the project. The contractor selected, Turner Construction Co., played an unexpectedly valuable role, achieving Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Certification. Besides working closely with the design team, some examples of how Turner contributed include 98% recycling of construction waste – far exceeding the project goal of 70%. Moreover, through detailed management of indoor air quality issues during construction, Procurement of sustainable construction services in the United States: the contractor’s role in green buildings