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SCL Contractor Commitment Refresh

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Mike Bahr
Assistant Project Manager
Gardner Builders
LEEDuser Basic Member
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Hey all,

I got plugged into this group about two weeks before GreenBuild and wasn't able to make it to the summit. I'm still catching up on all the work this group has been doing recently, but I know one of the big ticket items is the SCL Contractor Commitment. 

I've read through the commitment that was posted right before GreenBuild, and have a couple of more questions. I would appreciate your insights/thoughts:

1. Who are we committing to when we commit to this? Is it each other, BuildingGreen as a whole? As part of that, how are we held accountable?

2. If a company were to take the commitment framework and make specific changes, does the SCL network do any kind of peer review?

3. Is there any kind of data warehouse where all of this tracking is being stored and analyzed by the SCL network?

 

 

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Steven Burke
Senior Director, Sustainability
Suffolk Construction
LEEDuser Basic Member
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Fri, 01/24/2020 - 14:51

Mike, these questions came up at the summit so you’re asking good questions. Not everyone was there so it’s worth answering. When the question came up at the summit as to what is the goal of this and why are we doing it, I wish I had thought to give the simplest answer possible: Because there are no sustainability goalposts for our industry. Architects have the 2030 commitment, the construction industry has nothing. There are no universal metrics to work towards or measure against, and that is the point of the commitment. As to the specifics of your questions, I’ll answer in order as I understand them currently. That said others may have more nuanced or up-to-date ideas or perspectives so keep that in mind: 1. Who are we committing to? How are we held accountable? – This hasn’t been fully defined yet, but here is how it seems right now: At this point it would be to each other. Accountability would be the honor system, similar to the AIA 2030 Commitment. There would be no benefit to falsifying performance and if you skip a year or don’t do parts of it you set out to do there are no penalties. 2. If a company adapts the framework specifically to their needs does the SCL do a peer review? This actually came up that parts of the suggested framework could not work within some companies. The intent of the framework is to set goals that applicable and attainable to most, but that does not mean everyone. For various reasons different companies will take issues with not being able to promote or implement certain parts of the framework. If it’s a handful that’s fine. If it’s more than a few then it should be reevaluated. If a company wants to adapt and adopt metrics that work better for them that’s great too. If they want our feedback with that I’m sure we would be happy to offer that. 3. Where does the data go? TBD. But, good question. The 2030 commitment started out with spreadsheets sent to the AIA and eventually they got a good online platform. This is definitely part of what still needs to be figured out. Steven Burke. LEED & WELL Faculty Sustainability Manager m: 774.462.2044 consigli.com From: Mike Bahr

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