documenting uneven male/female occupancy

Hi Marni,
Did you provide any justification in the initial submittal to detail why there was an uneven split between male and female occupants? Or is this the response from GBCI after providing the historical data info?

This sounds like a tricky one to respond to. Can you provide historical and trend data? It may be hard to argue that this unequal gender ratio would remain for the life of the building without the forecasting data.

I suggest using your historic numbers plus a 10% adjustment for the addition of women in the workforce. This should allow similar savings projections, but give enough of a buffer for change over time.

Be sure to provide an thorough explanation, similar to your justification in your inquiry above for why those historic numbers are relevant.

The rulings of the LEED reivewers has been pretty consistent recently - historical / trend data is not usually acceptable, only a sort of structural definition - a single-sex school, for example. It may be Amy's recommended process will be acceptable, but I'm afraid to say that it has not been our experience.

How was this case resolved? Our projects that our factories outside USA are staffed by 95% men. For two out of the three projects, the reviewers required 50/50. Historical data and the 10% bump for women in the future did not pass.

Hi Kath,
Not to jump in the middle. We're not an NC project, but we have been in mid review pursuing a non 50/50 gender split for a technology firm on a CI with a provable 75/25 gender balance among staff of their firm and the industry itself. We offered 10 years historic data and 10 years of future projection and were told we would have to substantiate this gender split for the life of the building.

Since we're not an NC project, we did not believe we could be held to a life of the building standard when we were only a tenant and had no control over the building. However, that was their ruling. So I can definitely support that they are sticking to the life of the building as the yardstick for deviation.

Anybody know where the 50/50 gender split comes from as a standard?

For those pursing non-50/50 splits, are your buildings designed for the unequal split -- i.e. do you have larger male restrooms compared to fewer female fixtures? I believe that would also qualify for an unequal ratio.

The factories in our projects have larger and more male restrooms than female restrooms but the reviewers still said calculations needed to be 50/50. I understand the position of anticipating the future when one reviewer used "Rosie the Riveter" as an example of a drastic shit in workforce due to an unanticipated influences from world events. It was just difficult to explain to the client why we did not earn the water credits when we did almost everything possible to be efficient..

VERY interesting that they rejected that despite the building being designed for more men.

Per the Water Use Reduction Additional Guidance document (http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=6493) if projects are specifically designed for an alternative gender ratio where flush and flow fixtures have been distributed to account for the modified ratio, then that is an acceptable reason for an uneven ratio. (You have to show that the code-required plumbing fixture counts per gender vs. the flush-fixture ratio installed in the project supports the alternative gender ratio claimed.)

This strikes me as something that should be reviewed by the TAG. I can understand that GBCI wants us to confirm the true potential split and future split, because it is defending against project teams that are gaming the system - toilet rooms with urinals can save a lot more water. But clearly the examples above are from good faith efforts to clearly and meticulously show a consistent unequal gender balance for the forseeable future. There has to be something between "only for a monastery" and "whatever the team says" that makes sense for projects like these. It's likely that if these plumbing strategies are good for 10 or 15 years, by that time there will be other technologies / issues out there that will change the question more significantly than gender split in 2012.