Protecting the environment can help save you money.

Is sustainable development a lasting initiative or just another trend touted by developers, engineers, architects and contractors trying to differentiate themselves from their competitors?

Recently there has been a lot of hype for sustainable development from environmentalists, engineers and architects. Programs have been established to measure the extent of sustainability incorporated into any given project. The U.S. Air Force has established policy to incorporate the concept of sustainable development into its engineering projects. Some major corporations are using sustainability in the development of major facilities and expansions. The question is: can sustainability be demonstrated to be robust enough to overcome economic inertia and truly profitable over the long term to justify potential increased short-term costs?

Sustainable development is defined as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs." In essence, this requires the use of designs that minimize the use of non-renewable resources, such as fossil fuels, and to recycle or reuse other resources, such as water, concrete and steel. Under the current economic conditions of inexpensive raw materials and relatively affordable fossil fuels, the higher cost of recycling and reusing can be a tough sell to the consumer.

In his current book, Becoming Part of the Solution, The Engineer's Guide to Sustainable Development, Bill Wallace presents the arguments for engineers and society to adopt the concepts of sustainable development. In the long term, due to population growth and economic development, the resources that we take for granted and are now relatively cheap will become scarce and expensive. Out of necessity, society will need to learn to do more with less and incorporate sustainability into our designs and way of life.

The economic argument for sustainable development is based on an evaluation of initial capital and lifetime costs of a project. Currently, most projects are designed based upon minimizing initial and capital cost with little consideration for lifetime or life-cycle costs. Of course the design must also meet, at a minimum, current codes. For sustainable development to be economically justified, it must be compared to other alternatives on the basis of lifetime costs. Most decision makers are unaware of the real costs over the lifetime of a building. The design of a building is typically one tenth of the building capital cost. The operations and maintenance are three times the capital cost of the building over its lifetime. Most significantly, the economic utility of the building is nine times the design, construction and operations and management costs combined. Studies have shown that the productivity of the people in the building can be increased by up to 20% through sustainable design concepts. If this is realized, it can justify more than doubling the initial cost of design and construction.

This analysis can be used to readily convince major corporations that construct buildings for their own use to implement sustainable design concepts. But what about the more common case of a developer who constructs a building for sale or lease? Typically these developers may not have the capital resources to cover the increased costs of design and construction. In addition, the tenants may not be willing to pay the premium on the rent necessary to support the capital cost of the building. These consumers, out of necessity, may have to wait until sustainable development is justified in the short-term economic analysis, as well. This may already be happening. The Poudre School District in Colorado has recently completed construction of sustainable buildings for $99 per s/f, significantly lower then the $120 per s/f local average.

Sustainable design concepts have been incorporated into man's endeavors since the beginning of time. Today, many of these concepts are used, as illustrated by the popularity of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. This program provides a yardstick to measure the sustainability of a project by grading the project on the number and efficiency of its sustain able components. The downside is that it may become just a "checklist" and stifle creative thinking that could bring a project to new levels of sustainability. The concern is that creative solutions are beyond the current "standard of practice" and carry an inherent liability.

A threat to sustainable development is the popular use of "value engineering." The purpose of value engineering is to reduce the construction cost of projects. Many times this can be done by making the project more easily constructed or substituting equivalent and cheaper products. Just as frequently, it involves the use of products or the sizing of components that are less energy efficient or environmentally friendly. An example of this is the use of roof top chiller units instead of geothermal heating and cooling. This short-sighted approach is detrimental to breakthroughs in sustainable development.

Sustainable development has been embraced by forward-thinking individuals and organizations as a trend to be followed. As the earth's population grows and limited resources become stretched, sustainable development will become a necessity.

Ultimately, short-term and long-term project economics will make it standard practice. Developers, engineers, architects and contractors must become accustomed to these concepts, since they will be a requirement in future projects and not just a means of differentiation between competitors.

PAUL W. GROSSER

PRINCIPAL, P.W. GROSSER CONSULTING