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.

This paper summarizes the findings of a study on green building policies that affect state funded, owned, or leased buildings. The original study was commissioned by Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority (GEFA) and resulted in recommendations for how best to encourage green building in State of Georgia facilities. While the ultimate purpose of the research effort was targeted at making recommendations for the State of Georgia, valuable information was garnered from the individuals who were generous with their time and provided information about the green building programs from their states. From this information, useful lessons can be concluded which have general applicability for all states and other public sector organizations interested in pursuing green building efforts. Interviews with key stakeholders from state agencies in nine of the eleven states that had formal green building policies at the time the study was conducted provided data that was essential to capturing lessons learned ...

Green building is receiving increased attention in the public sector in the United States. Over the past ten years, public sector organizations have gone from “testing the waters” with green building pilot projects to developing wide-reaching policies that incorporate green building practices and standards as a formal part of capital project decision processes. A variety of approaches have been employed at the federal, state, and local levels that encourage or require green building practices on public sector projects. To date, however, there has been no systematic evaluation of the pros and cons of these policy options to provide a basis for organizations considering how best to construct a program to meet the needs of its specific context. This paper identifies, compares, and contrasts options that have been incorporated as part of green building programs for states and other public sector organization seeking to motivate green building practices in their capital projects and facilities. Three categories of options are considered: Policy, Program, and Evaluation options. The paper evaluates alternatives within each of these categories according to their potential social, environmental, and economic impacts as well as their likelihood of implementation success within the context of public agencies. The findings of this paper contribute a palette of options for policymakers to consider when drafting policies for their organizations, along with program options to be considered by those who must implement the policies. This work contributes a foundation for future research to further understand the relative effectiveness and impacts of policy elements on green building practice within public sector organizations.

The hotel industry is beginning to implement green design and construction practices, saving energy, water, and resources and thus helping to preserve the environment. In addition, green building practices also can provide healthy and comfortable indoor environments to hotel occupants including guests and employees. However, there is the potential for conflict between green building practices and hotel guests' satisfaction and comfort, as the conservation of resources could detract from the quality of a guest's visitor experience. This study adopted a case study approach to identify and analyze green design and construction practices that create a green and luxurious environment without damaging the hotels' financial position. An in-depth literature review was conducted to identify green design and construction practices, design features of premium hotels, and major design conflicts between the twin goals of green building and a luxurious hotel environment. Two LEED platinum hotels (the Proximity Hotel and the Bardessono Hotel, both in the United States) were selected and data collected on their green design and construction practices, luxurious design features, and operation and maintenance practices from multiple sources, including the owner, designer, contractor, engineer, and LEED consultant. From the perspective of the entire lifecycle of the building, this data was analyzed to identify green design and construction practices that not only provide a green, luxurious environment but also enhance the hotels' financial strength.

With increasing evidence that sustainable design and construction results in more energy-efficient, lower-cost, less environmentally damaging, and more occupant-friendly facilities, organizations have begun to seek guidance on integrating concepts of sustainability into their capital programs. A growing number of guidance documents have been developed to support these sustainability efforts. While these documents contain a broad spectrum of information on sustainable buildings, they are not necessarily written or organized suitably for stakeholders associated with the postconstruction phases of the facility life cycle. This paper presents a critical parametric analysis of nine such documents intended to educate facility decision makers on sustainability. The analysis revealed that these documents, with some exceptions, do not address all of their intended audiences equally, with most information focusing on designers and owners and comparatively less information targeted to others such as facilities managers. Given the crucial role facilities managers play in ensuring the ongoing sustainable performance of facilities, there is a need to modify or extend existing guidance documents to better address the needs of facilities managers.

Green building is becoming more mainstream in the public sector, especially in federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Defense, in a large part due to federal policies requiring more sustainable outcomes in the design and construction of public sector projects. These policies challenge contracted design professionals by adding new demands to a process already constrained by limited budgets, multiple objectives, and short time frames. The purpose of this research is twofold: (a) to inventory decision support tools available to aid the green design process, and (b) to investigate approaches for organizing these tools to facilitate tool selection and adoption by designers new to green building. The research approach is based on principles of innovation adoption theory, specifically the constructs of relative advantage and trialability of innovations. The 275 design-related tools examined here address the spectrum of green building concepts and represent a range of applicability to different design tasks. The findings of this research indicate that while considerable investment has been made in developing freely available web-based tools to support design, a relatively small number of those tools are immediately applicable to the task of making Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) credit determinations for specific projects. The two characteristics of innovations explored in this research provide a basis for explaining some of the anecdotal observations of tools employed in practice, suggesting a need for further research to confirm and extend the findings.