Attainable goals to minimize environmental impact, improve wellness outcomes
By: Jackie Mustakas
There seems to be an unlimited number of articles, toolkits and resource guides promising an easier “how-to” experience for sustainable design and construction projects. Yet, it might be a recurring feeling that the strategies discussed in a recent case study just won’t pertain to your unique project. Similarly, it’s easy to get lost in complex embodied carbon calculations and lifecycle analysis recommendations.
While these shared stories and informative measurements are necessary for meaningful advancement in sustainability, sorting through theory and long-term solutions can feel overwhelming. Without a measurable and shared vision, project team members may stop short of taking daily, practical actions to deliver more sustainable healthcare projects.
It seems many organizations are grappling with similar challenges, especially in project planning, waste generation and diversion and commissioning. By proactively and collectively establishing attainable goals for each phase of a project, teams can take steps toward minimizing environmental impact and improving wellness outcomes in simple, significant and often cost-neutral ways.
Planning and preconstruction
There is no solution more effective for a construction project than early team engagement. Improving material selection? Early engagement. Enhancing operational efficiency? Early engagement. A streamlined commissioning process? You guessed it — early engagement. Any number of challenges can be solved with the right experience at the table, and it’s becoming even more essential to onboard all project partners — including design, construction and key trades — with sufficient time to collaborate.
While Design-Assist and IPD-type contracts can support a more collaborative project delivery, better planning begins with studying the design. If a team member knows a system can be prefabricated or an alternative material could be more sustainable, they should be encouraged to suggest it. The first steps in improving outcomes are agreeing on project goals and creating a platform to present potential solutions.
One benefit early engagement has on sustainable design is improved project resiliency. Resiliency is often thought of as a building’s ability to withstand adverse weather events or natural disasters, such as hurricanes, but equally important is the facility’s ability to adapt to or recover from those events. To achieve this, we need team members who can innovate and incorporate enhanced structural materials, flood mitigation and stormwater management processes, diversified energy sources, flexible design for future modifications and optimization of building envelopes.
In addition to performing climate risk assessments, an integrated team can support decarbonization efforts, tackle regenerative approaches and establish a data-tracking strategy for use in future improvements. All these opportunities require an engaged team, encouraged and onboarded early enough to investigate strategies that support resiliency goals without jeopardizing fundamental project priorities, such as cost and schedule.
For example, on Robins & Morton’s Boca Raton Regional Hospital project, the Gloria Drummond Patient Tower located in Florida, early engagement with the design team and client identified clear goals for the project. Together, we focused on creating a destination for health and wellness, while also prioritizing resiliency and operational efficiency. This vision enabled intentional collaboration with the design team and key trade contractors, encouraging them to bring forward innovative ideas for team evaluation and analysis.
We communicated consistently to analyze building skin opportunities for each exterior façade, investigate prefabrication and modularity options, establish healthy material goals, examine opportunities for flexibility and study carbon reduction metrics and realistic outcomes. Through this investigation and analysis-informed design, the project team was able to lower initial installation costs, increase redundancy, improve efficiency, enhance resiliency, reduce carbon and improve health. The result balances aesthetics, LEED and WELL certification criteria and overall cost for the patient tower.
Construction and waste generation
It’s no secret that diverting construction and demolition waste has become increasingly more difficult. Recycling infrastructure has weakened and the newest version of LEED standards eliminates both the waste management prerequisite and points associated with waste reduction. As such, waste management feels like an obstacle, at a lower priority. However, proactive investigation of appropriate waste reduction and diversion solutions should be of higher importance, as waste has returned to being a primary challenge on sustainable jobsites.
Perhaps the most obvious solution: You don’t have to manage waste that doesn’t exist. An emphasis on reducing pounds of waste per square foot of construction would decrease the amount that needs to be transported and recycled in challenging regional markets. The reduction would lower hauling and processing costs, decrease transportation emissions and demand less coordination and labor onsite to manage. This, again, supports the need for early collaboration and commitment from all project team members to proactively incorporate modular and prefabricated solutions, communicate reduced packaging expectations and commit to exceptional material delivery and handling.
One example is Robins & Morton’s UHealth Doral Medical Center project in Doral, Florida. Local waste diversion had slowed, few materials were recyclable at an acceptable cost and, therefore, additional emphasis needed to be placed on waste reduction. We worked closely with the University of Miami Health System and design partners from the earliest stages to coordinate waste reduction through prefabrication, efficient construction practices and careful logistics planning. The result was streamlined material handling, minimized onsite waste and less costs associated with transporting and recycling materials.
Another way to accomplish more is with intentional salvage assessments. Working with design teams to promote material circularity and remove “new” from certain product specifications could prompt project team members to take a closer look at deconstructed or recovered materials for reuse. This can be more complex in healthcare environments; however, if we aim to review these opportunities collectively, we could reduce the number of materials, either from sites or elsewhere, that are destined for landfills.
Often, waste is an “out of sight, out of mind” issue, but environmental strain and community health concerns demonstrate otherwise. When we take a mindful approach to waste reduction, behaviors can result in both short-term and long-term achievements.
Commissioning and operational efficiency
When we reach the commissioning stage, we’re aiming to verify that building systems operate as designed. Too often, however, inadequate coordination or undefined roles and responsibilities disrupt the opportunity to further optimize system performance.
Contractual arrangements that favor open collaboration, such as Design-Assist and IPD, tend to avoid hard-lining tasks, even if they’re not detailed within the contract. Supporting early engagement, clearly defining tasks and encouraging continuous communication among the commissioning agent, the design team and contractor can reduce gaps in responsibility and support system performance and functionality.
Additionally, this continuous collaboration typically results in improved training for facility operations and maintenance staff, including delivering succinctly organized systems manuals. Turning over effective resources safeguards operational efficiency, protects occupant health and provides the foundation for ongoing monitoring and maintenance.
What should we do?
When the inevitable question arises — “What should we do?”— the answer is simpler than you may think: Whatever we can.
A foundational intention to do better, along with an early opportunity to align on tangible goals for the project, can shape the project team’s vision and refine their tools. The collaborative and methodical approach will be integrated into the team’s decision-making model; therefore, the project plans. Sustainability should never stand alone in a construction and design strategy. Instead, it should be a companion, guiding decisions to lower environmental impact, enhance resilience, support healthier communities and achieve greater operational efficiency.
Jackie Mustakas is senior sustainability manager at Robins & Morton.
