Our company is a mechanical/electrical/plumbing (MEP) Project Management, Engineering, and Commissioning design firm. We are located in Seattle WA. We currently have a project that we are the MEP Manager working for the General Contractor. Although we have a management role, we have no design responsibility or control over the actual design activities that are being performed by the responsible design/build professionals. There are no financial or managerial relationships between our company and the responsible design professionals. The MEP Manager activities include: Creation of mechanical and electrical Requests for Proposals. Development of Design Development mechanical Budgets alongside design/build subcontractors bidding the project. Evaluation of MEP subcontractor bids summarized in spreadsheet form delivered to GC prior to interviews. Attendance at MEP interviews. Summary of MEP subcontractor proposals, bids, and interviews in spreadsheet form for final evaluation by GC. Attend design meetings during preconstruction to ensure trade coordination is occurring among team members. Attend detailing meetings during preconstruction to ensure trade coordination is occurring among team members. Facilitate the selection of the DDC Controls and Security contractors. Construction Meeting attendance as required. In addition to the MEP Management services, the client has asked us to provide both Fundamental and Enhanced Commissioning Services for LEED NC 2.2 compliance. The LEED Commissioning services would be performed as follows: We maintain dedicated Commissioning staff, separate from our MEP management staff. The Commissioning staff would report directly to the project\'s Owner, unlike the MEP staff which reports to the GC. We want to confirm that performing services for two separate roles from two separate divisions of the company is acceptable. Since there have been previous rulings allowing third party commissioning work to be contracted by a Design Build Contractor we feel that the intent of the Enhanced Commissioning credit is met if the General Contractor has hired our commissioning agents as an independent third-party commissioning provider. To ensure that the conflict of interest is minimized, we will maintain a clear, direct line of communication from the commissioning providers to the owner.
The CIR is requesting that employees of the Project MEP Manager (working for the General Contractor) be allowed to serve as commissioning agents for the purposes of EAc3. This arrangement does not meet the requirements of the credit, as it may lead to a conflict of interest. The document titled "Who Can Be the Commissioning Authority" (found on the USGBC website under the "LEED" tab, select "LEED Resources," then click on the link to "LEED Reference Documents") was created for LEED-NC v2.2, but the guidelines apply to LEED for Schools as well. It states that companies who are serving as construction managers can only serve as the EAc3 commissioning authority if they do NOT hold constructor contracts. In this case, because the company has been hired by the GC, they do not meet this requirement. The applicant also references a LEED-NC v2.1 EAc3 CIR ruling dated 12/22/2005 which allows design-build contractors to hire "independent" third party commissioning agents. To be considered independent, the commissioning authority must be able to demonstrate that there is no shared management structure, there are no standing financial relationships, and that there is no shared staff between itself and any parties involved with the design or construction of the project. Again, it does not appear that the commissioning team, as described in the CIR meets this requirement. Applicable Internationally.