After reading the paper on small and medium sized enterprises' (SMES) investment in environmental measures, I again thought of another way for LEED to add to their construction management rating system. The paper focuses on the concept that SMES can benefit greatly from investing as worker conditions are improved as a result, and can increase productivity and attitude.
As I have discussed before, LEED does take some measures to address worker conditions such as points for air quality control (HVAC) and dust control. Still, this is standard practice at most sites I feel, and LEED could look into promoting further worker protection. This is hard to do on a construction site, as work is very driven with few breaks during the day. And since construction is mostly outside there is not much to improve upon with worker environment, along with AASHTO regulating safety conditions. So, as I can't really think of any right now, LEED should give double points for that super creative project manager who thinks of a great way to improve worker conditions.
It also occurred to me that LEED could even strive to make an entirely separate distinctions for the construction of a building and the design aspects of a building, as they are entirely different process, though often linked. This could spawn a whole slew of contractors who promote their adherence to LEED practices.
Now it feels like I am really reaching to find LEED criticisms, and maybe I should start pulling together my arguments for my final project.
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1 comment:
good application of course work to another domain. an interesting proposition about "separate" LEED ratings for design and construction. we could talk off-line, but Chris. H. and I tried to get a proposal through the Construction Industry Institute to create sustainable construction criteria - they could make a lot of money with it!
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