Guest Article by Tom Kelleher, Jr., Senior Partner, Smith, Currie & Hancock LLP
Introduction – Green Is Now Green construction is not the “Wave of the Future” in federal government construction contracts, it is here now. Whether building a new facility at a military base in Georgia or renovating a federal courthouse in the Pacific Northwest, the federal government is placing a strong emphasis on environmentally conscious (“green”) construction. Motivations for adoption of green construction vary from a desire to conserve resources and avoid adverse impacts to the environment to reducing the cost of operating and maintaining a facility, which can easily have a life span of several decades. Fortunately, environmental considerations and economics do not need to conflict as the long-term operating and maintenance cost of a facility can easily offset the incremental additional cost of designing and building a facility to achieve a specified requirement, standard, or code.
As the single largest property owner in the United States, the federal government has an obvious long-term interest in reducing its cost for operating and maintaining its facilities. The federal government’s emphasis on green construction is also evolving from a requirement to achieve a particular certification e.g., LEED Silver, to detailed requirements specifying expected energy savings or to the consideration of the proposed facility’s total ownership cost (“TOC”) as an award evaluation factor. Click here to read the entire story.