CSI’s new green specifications

Energy efficiency is a hot topic these days. It seems you can’t open a newspaper or magazine without reading something about the importance of conserving energy. Fuel-efficient cars and energy-efficient appliances are all the rage, but not many people are talking about America’s energy-guzzling buildings.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Transportation, buildings account for 39 percent of the nation’s total annual energy consumption, compared to the 27 percent attributed to transportation.

The construction industry and corporate America are taking notice. Green buildings, which significantly lower energy consumption compared to standard buildings, are quickly becoming the norm. Companies as diverse as Bank of America, Genzyme, IBM, and Toyota are pushing green buildings into the mainstream. Genzyme recently built a green, 12-story headquarters building in Cambridge, Mass. In the building’s first year, it used 42 percent less energy than a standard building of comparable size.

Not so long ago, green buildings were nothing more than interesting experiments that were fun to tinker with but unfeasible in the real business world. But over the last five years, things have changed considerably in the construction industry. Going green now carries financial advantages and workforce benefits. The low cost of materials and technology and greater availability of green products make the total cost of constructing a green building roughly the same as the cost of constructing a standard building.

CSI’s green specifications

The Construction Specifications Institute (CSI)—a national association of specifiers, architects, engineers, contractors, building materials suppliers, and others involved in commercial and institutional building design and construction—has spent much of its time in recent years working to help the industry with the transition from standard buildings to green buildings.

The process of evaluating and specifying sustainable building products in green building projects requires many complex considerations that go beyond the analysis of basic performance criteria typically found in specifications. CSI’s 2004 edition of MasterFormat—the organizational standard for the written instructions for construction work results for all structures in the United States and Canada—has grown from 16 to 50 divisions to better accommodate the lifecycle of a project. MasterFormat now includes results for all structures, not just standard commercial buildings.

Following the completion of the 2004 version of MasterFormat, CSI created the Sustainable Facilities Task Team in 2005 to explore sustainable green building initiatives offered in the construction industry and to matrix common and unique attributes. This research resulted in the formation of a second task team that was charged with creating a product data guide that would track the green properties of building materials and components used during construction. After nearly six months of development work, this team developed GreenFormat: A Reporting Guide for Sustainable Criteria of Products, which will soon be available for a limited beta test.

GreenFormat will provide a standardized format for reporting information about the sustainable attributes of construction products. This information will be stored in a Web-accessible database that allows users to sort and view the data in various ways to best suit a project’s needs. The database offers an additional benefit to manufacturers, as it provides a way to present clear, consistent, and concise information on the lifecycle qualities of products to specifiers.

How GreenFormat works

Manufacturers enter product information into GreenFormat through an objective questionnaire form, which includes 14 categories of questions. The first three categories contain questions requesting general information about the manufacturer and its product, which will be listed in conformance with CSI’s MasterFormat04 numbering system. Designers and specifiers will be able to search the database by MasterFormat number, manufacturer’s name, trade name, or keyword. To enable streamlined searches, the fourth question category requests information about regulatory agency regulations or approvals met by the product.

Categories five, six, and seven contain questions relating to three different methods of specifying—respectively, reference standard, performance driven, and descriptive. (Those writing a proprietary specification would use the information presented in the second and third categories.) The questions in categories eight through 12 generally relate to the five phases of a product’s lifecycle, as noted in the Project Resource Manual (PRM). Category 13 gives manufacturers an opportunity to report any additional information about their company’s environmental policy/programs or other environmental groups listing its product. The final category asks the individual filling out the form to affirm the information provided is correct, true, and verifiable with regard to the responses given.

GreenFormat intends to offer the tools to provide a clear, concise, and standard way of presenting the attributes of construction products. It also aims to serve as a flexible resource for designers and specifiers relying on the sustainable design qualities of building materials. More information about CSI’s GreenFormat is available at www.csinet.org.

Like all specifications, effective green specifications depend on the storage and successful use of information throughout a structure’s lifecycle. This information must be easily accessible within a classification system that is navigable by every discipline involved. All disciplines included in creating and sustaining the built environment will eventually use another CSI system, OmniClass, to organize, store, and retrieve building information from conception through demolition. OmniClass will work together with CSI’s MasterFormat and UniFormat, a Uniform Classification System for organizing preliminary construction information into a standard order or sequence on the basis of functional elements.

Conclusion

The construction industry is ever-changing, but structural engineers and other construction professionals can be certain that green buildings are here to stay. Green buildings are environmentally conscious and they offer economic and workforce benefits. The industry has recognized these benefits and is becoming "greener" every day. CSI is working hard to stay in front of the green movement and will continue to lead the way.

Paul R. Bertram, Jr., FCSI, CDT, LEED AP, is the president and CEO of PRB Connect. As the founder of PRB Design in 1978, Bertram’s experience includes development of specialized marketing communication and sales support programs specifically designed for the building team. In 2002, after joining the U.S. Green Building Council, he developed a specialized area of practice focusing on sustainable building product assessment. He can be reached at 407-256-5317 or via e-mail at paul@prbconnect.com.