SUSTAINABLE BUILDING DELIVERY PRACTICES

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suat Gunhan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Green Building ◽  
The United States ◽  
Project Delivery ◽  
Facilities Management ◽  
Specific Method ◽  
Survey Questionnaire ◽  
Comprehensive Planning ◽  
Sustainable Building ◽  
Sustainable Projects

Today’s clients both public and private have additional expectations from builders. Full cycle services capability that includes financing, planning, building, and facilities management started to be pronounced in larger projects. These expectations are mainly driven by sustainability requirements of clients. These projects necessitate a comprehensive planning approach. The comprehensive planning scope includes all project activities from design to post-construction services (facilities management) with collaboration of project stakeholders. There is no defined method of project delivery for sustainable projects yet. The majority of top green building contractors in the United States are experienced in Construction Management at Risk (CMR) and DesignBuild (DB) delivery methods. This research study aims to explore the project delivery processes currently practiced in the United States’ building construction industry. The survey questionnaire was conducted with the selected Top Green Building Contractors (the list of contractors is published in the Engineering News Record Magazine annually). The original list is composed of 100 national construction firms. The San Antonio and Austin firms were invited to participate to the survey questionnaire. The findings reveal the major green building providers’ methods and procedures that are used during sustainable projects’ delivery. The results indicate that the sustainability is seen as more of a common practice for all projects by most survey participants. There is no specific method for sustainable projects yet. A well-defined sustainable building delivery method should ideally originate from DB and/or CMR.

scholarly journals LEED–PDRI Framework for Pre-project Planning of Sustainable Building Projects

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 123-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gamini Weerasinghe ◽  
Karthik Soundararajan ◽  
Janaka Ruwanpura
Keyword(s):  
Construction Projects ◽  
Green Building ◽  
The United States ◽  
Project Planning ◽  
Sustainable Construction ◽  
Rating Systems ◽  
Building Projects ◽  
Sustainable Building ◽  
Environmentally Sustainable ◽  
Sustainable Projects

Green buildings help in sustainability, in terms of achieving energy efficiency and minimizing the utilization of natural resources. Additional benefits include long-term sustainable building management and maintenance. There is, therefore, compelling motivation for the building of sustainable projects. This inspiration has led to the development of the leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) rating systems and projects by the United States Green Building Council and the Canadian Green Building Council. Proper building project management (BPM) of such projects is warranted. Pre-project planning is a crucial part of BPM that ensures delivery and performance of construction projects. Pre-project planning is defined as the process that encompasses all the tasks between project initiation and detailed design. There is a positive relationship between comprehensive pre-project planning and enhanced project performance. Given the motivation for environmentally sustainable projects and proper management of constructing such projects, diligent pre-project planning for such projects is required. This paper investigates the use of the LEED rating system in pre-project planning of sustainable construction projects by developing a matrix that combines the LEED and the Project Definition Rating Index (PDRI) developed by the Construction Industry Institute. The conceptual matrix and its application to a case study demonstrates that the value of linking pre-project planning with LEED to improve the decision making process during planning and designing of building projects to improve sustainability.

scholarly journals SEM-PLS Approach to Green Building

Encyclopedia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 472-481
Author(s):  
Nasim Aghili ◽  
Mehdi Amirkhani
Keyword(s):  
Structural Equation ◽  
Green Building ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Assessment System ◽  
Renewable Materials ◽  
Sustainable Building ◽  
Building Operation ◽  
The Impact

Green buildings refer to buildings that decrease adverse environmental effects and maintain natural resources. They can diminish energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, the usage of non-renewable materials, water consumption, and waste generation while improving occupants’ health and well-being. As such, several rating tools and benchmarks have been developed worldwide to assess green building performance (GBP), including the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) in the United Kingdom, German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB), Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) in the United States and Canada, Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency (CASBEE) in Japan, Green Star in Australia, Green Mark in Singapore, and Green Building Index in Malaysia. Energy management (EM) during building operation could also improve GBP. One of the best approaches to evaluating the impact of EM on GBP is by using structural equation modelling (SEM). SEM is a commanding statistical method to model testing. One of the most used SEM variance-based approaches is partial least squares (PLS), which can be implemented in the SmartPLS application. PLS-SEM uses path coefficients to determine the strength and significance of the hypothesised relationships between the latent constructs.

An Empirical Examination of Evaluation’s Presence in the Undergraduate Curriculum in the United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-310
Author(s):  
John M. LaVelle ◽  
Nina Sabarre ◽  
Haley Umans
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Private Colleges ◽  
Undergraduate Curriculum ◽  
The United States ◽  
Specific Method ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Undergraduate Level ◽  
Evaluation Practice ◽  
Public Colleges And Universities ◽  
Top 40

Evaluator education programs have developed to help support the growth of professional evaluators and improve evaluation practice. Empirical research has described where and how evaluation is taught at the graduate level of education, but little is known about the undergraduate level. This study empirically explores how, if at all, evaluation is taught at the undergraduate level by systematically analyzing the publicly available curricula of the top 40 public and top 40 private universities in the United States. Findings demonstrate that 470 evaluation-specific and associated courses were offered across public colleges and universities (335 courses offered) and private colleges (135 courses offered). However, among these 470 courses, the extent to which evaluation is taught varies from a specific method of systematic inquiry to a tool used for assessment or judgment, or minor topic within a broader subject. Implications for the field are discussed.

Green Construction: Contractor Experiences, Expectations, and Perceptions

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 106-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Han Ahn ◽  
Annie R Pearce
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Green Building ◽  
The United States ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Construction Firms ◽  
Construction Market ◽  
Green Construction ◽  
Construction Contractor ◽  
Construction Knowledge ◽  
New Hires

As the benefits of green building continue to change the Architecture/Engineering/Construction industry and the number of green projects rises in the United States due to market changes, more construction firms are gaining experience with this new way of building and changing their expectations for new hires from degree-granting construction programs. This paper documents a baseline study of contractor experiences, expectations, and perceptions associated with green building conducted in Fall 2006. The study was based on detailed survey results from 87 different companies recruiting from three major university construction programs in the eastern United States (Auburn, Purdue, and Virginia Tech). The survey collected data regarding current experience levels and capabilities of companies with regard to green construction, corporate expectations of new hires in terms of green construction knowledge and skills, and respondent expectations and perceptions about the future of the industry with regard to green projects. The findings of this study support the growing importance of green building as a component of the whole construction market and provide a benchmark against which to measure future changes in the industry over time.

scholarly journals Glycopeptide-Intermediate Staphylococcus aureus: Evaluation of a Novel Screening Method and Results of a Survey of Selected U.S. Hospitals

1999 ◽  
Vol 37 (11) ◽  
pp. 3590-3593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susannah K. Hubert ◽  
Jasmine M. Mohammed ◽  
Scott K. Fridkin ◽  
Robert P. Gaynes ◽  
John E. McGowan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Staphylococcus Aureus ◽  
Pilot Study ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Antimicrobial Agents ◽  
Screening Method ◽  
Brain Heart Infusion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Specific Method ◽  
Vancomycin Mics

Isolates of Staphylococcus aureus with decreased susceptibilities to glycopeptide antimicrobial agents, such as vancomycin and teicoplanin, have emerged in the United States and elsewhere. Commercially prepared brain heart infusion agar (BHIA) supplemented with 6 μg of vancomycin per ml was shown in a previous study to detect glycopeptide-intermediate S. aureus (GISA) with high sensitivity and specificity; however, this medium, when prepared in-house, occasionally showed growth of vancomycin-susceptible control organisms. This limitation could significantly impact laboratories that prepare media in-house, particularly if they wished to conduct large surveillance studies for GISA. Therefore, a pilot study to detect GISA was performed with vancomycin-containing Mueller-Hinton agar (MHA) prepared in-house in place of commercially prepared BHIA. MHA was selected for this study because this medium is widely available and well standardized. The results of the pilot study showed that supplementation of MHA with 5 μg of vancomycin per ml was both a sensitive and a specific method for screening for GISA isolates. This method was used to screen for GISA among 630 clinical isolates of methicillin-resistant S. aureus collected during 1997 from 33 U.S. hospitals. Although 14 S. aureus isolates grew on the screening agar, all were vancomycin susceptible (MICs were ≤1 μg/ml) by broth microdilution testing. Population analyses of five isolates revealed two with a subpopulation for which vancomycin MICs were 8 μg/ml. In summary, the MHA screen plate containing 5 μg of vancomycin per ml prepared in-house provides a sensitive and cost-effective method for large-scale screening for GISA for which vancomycin MICs are 8 μg/ml. However, confirmation of isolates as vancomycin resistant is critical. This study suggests that GISA was not a widespread problem in the United States in 1997.

scholarly journals PUBLIC POLICY AND IMPACTS ON ADOPTION OF SUSTAINABLE BUILT ENVIRONMENTS: LEARNING FROM THE CONSTUCTION INDUSTRY PLAYMAKERS

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy D. Mulligan ◽  
Sinem Mollaoğlu-Korkmaz ◽  
Russell Cotner ◽  
Adrienne Domas Goldsberry
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Green Building ◽  
The United States ◽  
Green Buildings ◽  
Built Environments ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Policy Makers

Sustainable practices in the built environment are becoming a more common phenomona as market penetration of green buildings grow. Despite the reported benefits of green buildings, barriers to sustainability still exist. To motivate wider adoption of sustainable built environments, this research studies public policy and its impacts. The study aims to understand the links between public policy, construction playmakers' (e.g., organizations', institutions', business owners', and developers') motivation to build green, and growth of sustainable built environments in the United States. As a step forward in this direction, this paper focuses on the case of Michigan and explores construction playmakers' motivations to build and/or occupy sustainable buildings and how effective current public policy in Michigan is at addressing these motivations. There is little research on the links among legislation, construction playmakers' motivation to build green, and the growth of sustainable built environment in the United States. This article's findings show that: 1) green building costs are still the most frequently-reported barrier to green building, 2) property developers are significantly less likely to utilize green building practices than other construction playmakers, 3) single-family residential buildings were the least likely building type to receive green certifications, and 4) construction playmakers report low levels of green policy awareness and use despite the presence of relevant public policies. These findings will provide direction for policy makers and advocates in creating policy that will effectively promote green building construction.

OPTIMIZING BUILDING UPGRADES TO MINIMIZE ENERGY AND WATER CONSUMPTION

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Moatassem Abdallah ◽  
Khaled El-Rayes ◽  
Caroline Clevenger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Water Consumption ◽  
Optimization Model ◽  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Green Building ◽  
The United States ◽  
Simulation Software ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Building Products

Building sector in the United States is responsible for 41% of energy consumption, 73% of electricity consumption, and 14% of water consumption. Energy and water consumption of buildings can be significantly reduced by identifying and implementing green building upgrade measures based on available budgets especially in aging buildings which represent 70% of existing buildings in the United States. This paper presents the development of an optimization model that is capable of identifying the optimal selection of building upgrade measures to minimize energy and water consumption of existing buildings while complying with limited upgrade budgets and building operational performance requirements. This optimization model is designed to estimate building energy consumption using energy simulation software packages, is integrated with databases of building products, and performs analysis of replacing existing building fixtures/equipment and installing renewable energy systems during optimization computations to identify the replacement of building products that minimizes energy and water consumption. The model is designed to provide detailed results for building owners, which include specifications for the recommended upgrade measures and their location in the building; required upgrade cost; expected energy and water, operational, and life-cycle cost savings; and expected payback period.

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