WHAT IS YOUR LEADERSHIP HEARING?

When leadership tells you to "build it green" it will be because they felt compelled to act on the big-picture environmental impact of the project as well as the total-cost-of-ownership economic case for green building features. Well chosen green building investments will yield benefits with either no additional first cost or with a return on investment well within your institution's internal rate of return over the life of the improvements.

Increasingly hospital leaders are looking at the triple-bottom-line:
• Financial return
• Patient outcomes
• Community health

OPTIONS IN ACCOUNTING FOR GREEN BUILDING FEATURES

All green building programs call for some form of organized accounting of green building features incorporated into the project. How to go about certifying incorporation of green building features is often a major issue for green hospital projects. Today, you have four basic options.

There are two options if you choose to verify your green accomplishments with a third party:
• LEED NC —Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for New Construction — through the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).
• Green Globes through the Green Building Initiative (GBI).
A third option that doesn't provide third-party verification of your claims of environmental correctness is through:
• Green Guide for Healthcare (GGHC)

Each of the three options has its trade-offs.

A 'LITE' GREEN HOSPITAL SCENARIO

The following scenario illustrates what can be done at zero additional cost to accountably incorporate green design within a project budget having no more than average funding for its building type and location. The scenario is based on an actual ten story patient tower addition currently under construction — covering over 320,000 square feet and providing over 150 new beds.

Early in preconstruction, hospital leadership expressed interest in adding environmental considerations into the design criteria. Several design charrette sessions were conducted to determine the system to be used to account for the green features and selection of green features appropriate to the project.

The hospital was unwilling to allocate dollars to certification and documentation expenses that could otherwise be spent on actual green construction features. Rather than seek LEED NC 2.2 certification, a customized hospital green standard based on the Green Guide for Healthcare (GGHC) was adopted. Green construction features sufficient to have gotten LEED NC 2.2 basic certification were incorporated into the project. The project budget was not increased to accommodate the selected green features.

The project design addressed all GGHC prerequisites and targeted the following credits — in all totaling 35 points:

COMMENTARY ON THE 'LITE' GREEN SCENARIO

The 'lite' green scenario illustrates that credible green results can be achieved at zero additional first cost. The intent was to illustrate a minimum baseline for green building. Some details differ from the actual project on which this scenario is based.

Nevertheless the GGHC-based process of the actual project yielded green results that could have been missed otherwise — including advances in:
• Light pollution reduction
• Water use reduction
• Minimum energy performance
• Commissioning
• Recycled content
• Low-emitting materials

YOU HAVE OPTIONS

This case study demonstrates that you can incorporate environmental considerations into your over-committed and under-funded project. There is no stopping the green building movement from taking its case to your hospital's leadership, but there are several ways you can address your hospital's green opportunities. You have options. You can credibly demonstrate green results using national standards with modest effort and still finish the job within budget. You can take this as an opportunity to make the case for prudent additional investment yielding environmentally beneficial results and attractive financial returns. The choice is yours.