How do you integrate sustainability into firm processes and measure your success?

Hi Keihly I'll have a go at answering your questions. ... 1) At the beginning of a project we will set quantitative and qualitative sustainability ambitions with our consultants and the client. In some cases we have internal ambitions that go beyond these. This is heavily informed by some 'gurus' in our (Performance and Provenance department, read sustainability) who have eyes on many of our projects but from then out it is embedded in our design teams but the gurus are there to support. Our designers are really competent and have lots of knowledge on sustainability themselves and the gurus are just there to make sure as an organisation and on each project we're being as ambitious as possible. I work for predominantly an architecture firm but we have landscape architects and all disciplines of engineering which really helps at the pre-design stage of a project. If you don't have this then maybe you have regular and friendly engineers you can talk with, especially if they might be selected for future projects!  2) Our tracking is relatively inconsistent across projects and depends on the project ambitions. We are pretty good at performing life cycle assessment during design so we'll include these results but we typically we won't update these after construction. We also track supply chains so we can see where money is being spent in a project because we aim to design buildings so the money is spent as local as possible. Sometimes we're able to get funding to track impacts during construction because the client can also use this information. Hope that helps!

Hi Keihly, and welcome to the group!  My firm was in a similar position just two years ago, so I will share what has worked (mostly) for us. Q1:  We started with the idea that every project would have a "Sustainable Design Champion".  This individual is not always a "guru" in terms of expertise, but more of an advocate responsible for making sure the team followed our design process.  We created a sustainable design "roadmap" which outlined all the steps to be taken at each project phase to ensure we arrive at the desired outcomes.  Desired outcomes were defined by the 2030 Commitment and the AIA Framework for Design Excellence.  These two standards proved essential to defining desired outcomes and serving as resources for all kinds of design tasks.  I'm straying a bit from your Q1, but I want to emphasize the value of these two standards in helping us define our firmwide goals.  Having a clearly defined process, and understanding the technical knowledge needed to implement certain tasks (LCA, for example) was a valuable first step.  The Champions approached proved to be less effective than hoped because they often were not the senior decision-makers within their teams.  And what we were trying to accomplish was a cultural change in how we think about architectural solutions.  Remember, "culture eats process for lunch," (Peter Drucker).  We abandoned the Champion idea and shifted the responsibility for achieving performance goals to Project Managers, Project Architects, and the Principal in charge.  We found that all three of these individuals need to be accountable for process and outcome.   Q2:  For benchmarks we start with the carbon emissions targets from the 2030 Commitiment.  For other goals, there can be a wide range of desired outcomes, but what matters most is that each team defines its own goals.  As I mentioned, we start with the AIA Framework.  For every project we require the team to create a "Sustainable Opportunities Plan" - basically a list of project goals covering the full range of Framework measures.  We include consultants in this process.  These goals then guide our conversations with the client.  Ultimately, client goals are what matters, and not all clients are interested in a high-performing building. To sum up, I would emphasize culture and goal setting as the most important steps in integrating sustainable metrics into your designs.  

Welcome, Keihly! Our story is very similar to the one Patrick describes. We also have a project sustainability roadmap. We're about a year into implementing a sustainability lead on each project, which we're realizing needs to be the project architect or someone equally involved in project leadership, likewise not necessarily a "guru" but responsible for assuring implementation of the roadmap items. The Sustainability Leads meet regularly and have plenty of overlap with our firmwide sustainability team to help cross-pollinate successes, troubleshoot, and provide moral support, much the way this group works for all of us. PMs and PICs have to be involved too, especially in the early phases when the PA/Sustainability Lead might not be on board or even identified. We generally break project goals into two buckets. First, we try to set early goals for the big sustainability stories that we want each project to develop, derived from the concepts in the AIA Framework and our firm vision focused on Carbon, Health, and Equity. Second, we are developing a template Project Performance Requirements document for all the metrics that define high performance. We use this to help Owner's create or improve upon their OPRs for our projects and get their early buy-in of performance targets across the full spectrum of sustainability outcomes. Mike

Keihly, We are using Tally, as it is well integrated with Revit. Our goal is to conduct a full or partial LCA on every project. There is a wealth of helpful information on the Tally website and through the Carbon Leadership Forum. Regarding firm-wide education: this is ongoing, and essential in terms of developing expertise, improving literacy, and achieving our ultimate goal of cultural change. We are not there yet, but having real success on projects, even if incremental, is getting us there. Patrick Patrick Donnelly, AIA, LEED AP Director of Sustainable Design Architect | Associate Principal pdonnelly@integrusarch.com [INT_logo_RGB] Integrus Architecture 117 South Main Street, Suite 100 Seattle, WA 98104 206.628.3138 | fax 206.628.3137 | office 206.355.0699 | mobile integrusarch.com

This is all a work in progress, but here's where we are: * We're creating a bunch of fields in Vision where we track project information. * Some of this acts as a to-do list - did we have a visioning charrette...did we establish performance goals...did we track embodied carbon. * Some is metrics - EUI, WWR, FSC wood, all electric, including post-occupancy metrics (actual EUI). * Some of these fields are text boxes where narrative descriptions are more appropriate. * I'm sure it will take a while before we consistently populate this data - it likely will be one of the tasks for our project sustainability leads - and it's not clear yet how we'll use all of it. * We are developing our own chemical avoidance strategy, focusing primarily on the architectural product types that we have control over, so we'll be able to gauge success in at least understanding how the products we specify fare against this criteria. I don't think we'll measure by percentage; I think we'll lean towards a narrative that describes our efforts, successes, and difficulties (ie: Owner insisted on vinyl flooring). * Likewise, tracking equity is likely to take on more of a narrative form to describe the project's work in community engagement, design/construction team diversity, access, etc. Keeping the wheels turning, especially now, is success! Mike Manzi RA, CSI, CDT, LEED BD+C Associate Principal he/him Bora Architecture & Interiors Working from home, please use email

I think my organisation can learn a lot what others have said! to answer your specific questions: 1) I mostly do LCAs using a spreadsheet because it gives us the most flexibility. If we need it for certification purposes then I'll use One Click LCA. 2) We don't use a any software to track supply chains and we don't do it on every project. We're only getting a rough order of magnitude and sometimes we hit dead ends. Sometimes we'll try to roughly capture everything or try to capture a certain product in a lot of detail.  3) We track what we call the 5 E's (Education, Environment, Economy, Equity and Emotion) here is an example of what we've tracked for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Campus (Link) and we give them monthly updates in construction.

Patrick, Picking this up a year and a half later. Are there any details you could share about your Sustainable Opportunities Plan that you use on each project? We are trying to develop something similar to help drive the framework into our projects a bit more. Thanks! Zach Hansen Zachh@invisionarch.com

I'm pleased to have come across this topic. All the replies inspired me a lot. Meanwhile, I'm curious to know which paths or strategies Keihly has ultimately adopted in their office. I appreciate Patrick's insights on this matter. I share Patrick's perspective on Champion systems.

• Champions don't always possess the authority to make critical decisions in the design process. The extent to which a project embraces sustainability often hinges on the principles and project architects involved. I've found the Champion system to be valuable because it endeavors to engage more individuals in this discourse, even those who may not wield direct decision-making power. Champions contribute to broadening the influence of sustainability and people are more likely to talk about these topics. Therefore, in this case, I believe the Champion system could serve as the initial step in sustainability training and education.

Hi, there. Sharing how we implement…We have a dedicated Design Green team to assist with different sustainability issues—energy models, certifications, materials, etc. We also have champions groups, Sustainability Champions group is a collective of one representative from each office, we have a second specific to interiors. The champions meet every two weeks, meetings share info out and sometimes collect initiative specific info in. Sustainability Champions work with studios on AIA DDx reporting, Sustainable Interiors champions currently are researching preferred materials specifications. How we measure…we have one Design Green team member who gathers data on DDx reporting. Advice…start with getting people excited about what is possible. Share information, celebrate when a project is doing something cool. Create specific goals, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Create task forces to take on the goal. Lisa​​​​ Adams , NCIDQ, LEED AP, WELL AP Director of CitizenHKS & Sustainable Design Leader Principal [HKS, Inc] 125 S Clark St, #1100, Chicago, IL 60603 +1 312 957 4352 | www.hksinc.com From: Jiewei Li <