Share thisOne focus of this issue of ALN is green building. As the debates on climate change, renewable energy, and protecting the environment heat up, building green and sustainability are getting a lot of media attention. So, how are green buildings built? And, what does this mean for the laboratory animal facility manager? In this column, the Safety Guys will take a look at green building and touch on some of the potential health and safety issues involved.
What is “building green?”
Elsewhere in this issue of ALN, there is a good article on green building and vivaria that explains in more detail what this is all about. Briefly, the U.S. Green Building Council, founded in 1993 and representing more than 11,000 organizations from every sec tor of the building industry, aims to direct construction towards environmental responsibility and sustainability. In 1999, the USGBC introduced LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a nationally recognized rating system for design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings. First designed for new commercial construction, there are now LEED rating systems for existing buildings, schools, and others, as well as systems under development for healthcare and laboratories.1
The LEED rating systems measure performance in six key areas and award four different levels of certification based on the aggre gate scores achieved. The areas scored are sustainable site devel opment, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, indoor environmental quality, and innovative design. The four lev els of LEED accreditation, ranked in order, are Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.
The reasons to “build green” and obtain LEED certification by following the rating system requirements are convincing. These projects, according to USGBC research, can realize up to 30% ener gy savings, 35% reduction of carbon emissions, use 30 to 50% less water, and generate 50 to 90% waste cost savings. All of these ben efits and more for only 1 to 7% increase in construction costs.2
How is health and safety impacted?
Designing and building green mainly focuses on minimizing environmental and resource impacts. It is exciting to see that building occupant health and productivity are also being con sidered. But, is enough done and are the approaches the most effective or desirable? What about the construction worker’s health and safety?
In working through the LEED rating system requirements, there are particular areas to which the health and safety manager should pay attention. Granted there are many positives to building green and LEED certification, but potential negatives exist as well. By increasing our awareness and putting thought into these issues at the beginning, we can minimize or possibly eliminate them from our green building project.
Considerations for the Construction Workers
Three of the key performance areas contain potential pitfalls for construction workers. We’ll discuss them in the order encoun tered under LEED for New Construction. First, in the section of sus tainable site development credit 3 is for Brownfield redevelopment A “Brownfield,” for those unfamiliar with the term, means “real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.”3 The intent is to rehabilitate damaged sites; a good idea. But if you are building a project on a Brownfield, then you better make sure you have all the information available and have incorporated it into a comprehensive health and safety plan for use by all the various contractors and their construction crews.