Defining Sustainability

by Jonathan McGaha | December 11, 2011 12:00 am

In the past five weeks, I have traveled to four different countries and had the opportunity to speak to several people about sustainability. The thing that I find most intriguing is that there is no commonly accepted definition for the term “sustainability.” A quick web search on the word results in approximately 77,400 sites that use the term “sustainability” as a hook. Clicking through a few of the first sites on the results page provides many different definitions for sustainability.

Wikipedia provides a short definition:

Sustainability is the capacity to endure.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provides a somewhat longer definition:

Sustainability creates and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations

Oddly enough, the online version of the Merriam Webster dictionary does not have a definition for the word “sustainability,” however; the term “sustainable” is defined as “capable of being sustained.” The point of this brief exercise was to try to understand why no one seems to use a common definition of a term that is so widely used in the architectural, engineering, construction and development industries.

Finding the Common Denominator

Even inside the green building industry, little common ground on a definition of the term sustainability can be found. I attended the U.S. Green Building Council’s 2011 Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, during the first week in October, and even there, no standard definition for this generally accepted term is readily available. There should be little surprise then to find that when meeting with a client group recently, it was apparent that even within their own organization, there was a wide range of meanings applied to this term that was continually used in a planning meeting for their new facility. One attendee, representing the client’s corporate engineering group, viewed sustainability as demonstrating one feature that could be seen by all of those who worked at or visited the facility. The representative from the facility management staff defined sustainability as anything that could demonstrate saving energy or water. The project manager tasked with the design and construction of the new facility had a personal definition of sustainability as any action that resulted in a reduction of cost to the project.

The leader of the design-build team did not fully understand that there would be so many different opinions on what the term “sustainability” meant within his client’s organization. As a result, they provided the client with their approach to sustainability through the utilization of the USGBC’s LEED rating system. Their presentation indicated how the current design could result in a facility that could potentially achieve a Silver LEED certification. At the conclusion of the presentation, they were informed that the majority of the client representatives attending the meeting were disappointed and that they had fallen short in meeting their expectations in terms of sustainability.

The announcement of the client’s dissatisfaction resulted in a two-day exercise that involved taking the information that was neatly summarized through the achievable credits and prerequisites contained in the LEED scorecard and creating multiple storyboards explaining the various elements contained in the design and how they were applicable to the numerous definitions of sustainability. In actuality, the current design contained measures that saved energy, water and a resulting reduction in future operating expenses.

The design team had spent considerable time evaluating options that increased their defined level of sustainability while lowering the overall cost of the project. While not visible to an untrained eye, the design contained more than one “standout” feature that demonstrated sustainability. The problem was the effort put into the design was not communicated in a manner that satisfied each of the individual definitions of sustainability that were represented in the room.

Using a Charrette to Define Goals

It is difficult and maybe even impossible to hit a target if you do not know what you are aiming for. USGBC, as well as other organizations that have produced “green” rating systems for buildings, strongly suggests conducting a charrette or workshop at the earliest stages of a project. This meeting, or series of meetings, is intended to bring all of the team members together for a conversation focused on sustainability. Ideas about a project are shared in a forum that is unrestricted, so everyone’s opinions count as valid because no individual definition of what sustainability means for that project has been developed at this phase. These types of meetings provide an opportunity for every team member to voice their personal definition of sustainability. The exchange of information can be distilled into a clear set of goals and objectives that the group can then use to determine the effectiveness of the team throughout the entire delivery process. Because all members of the delivery team are provided the opportunity to contribute to the set of standards by which their work will be judged, a sense of ownership of the project is created.

In the case of the delivery team noted above, the leaders did not take the time or provide themselves the opportunity to conduct a goal-setting exercise with the expanded team. The corporate engineering team mistakenly thought that their definition of sustainability would be understood by the entire organization. The project manager thought he had communicated a set of deliverables to the design-build team. The design-build team thought they understood what was required. All those in the chain thought they knew what they were supposed to do.

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/articles/december-2011-leeding-the-way/