Project scope is a summary of the project, what will be done and what will not. The scope of any project, but particularly affordable housing projects, can be heavily flavored by budget and additional constraints, such as HUD requirements or an increase in the agreed-upon number of units (decreasing the budget for each unit). Integrating, rather than superimposing, green building is key to keeping your scope green.

How is a green project scope different?

Green project scoping includes a focus on what green principles will be driving project delivery, and how those principles will be expressed and measured. For example, energy efficiency is a principle with a focus on building envelope performance, expressed and measured in R-values and air tightness, blower door and infrared imaging tests.

And you can’t tease out the green cost premium within the project scope. Green principles are integral to the overall value proposition of the project; they are part of the overall development plan. Green project scoping can set the stage for different perspectives and outcomes. On a recent project, the project team thought there had to be a better way to manage stormwater than the conventional large holding and settling ponds, which took up a lot of space and involved a lot of cut and fill. A focus on green in the project scope moved the civil engineer to investigate pervious paving. In the end, the pervious paving was less expensive, involved a lot less cut and fill, and gave the client considerably more usable area on a tight lot.

Project scope, specifications, scopes of work…

The one thing we can say about building project documentation is that there is no single approach. Every time I think I have it all straight for a particular building sector—production homebuilders, large-scale commercial architects, non-profit affordable housing—I find another successful system different from all the others. Here is one way to think of how all these part of project documentation can fit together:

• Project Scope – the project summary, setting important boundary conditions; budgetary and focus or intent. This is where a project starts (for rehab, AFTER a detailed assessment of the building/property).

• Specifications – accompanying whatever drawings there are for a project, the specifications explicitly detail the processes and products that will be employed for the WHOLE project.

• Scopes of work – the contract documents, by trade, that define and bind the work of each trade contractor. High performance scopes of work integrate or connect, by pre- and post-checklists, the work of contractors who must dovetail their work.

Do you need each of these project documents? No, not necessarily. A big decision when moving to green is how much to push on conventions, especially true for project documentation. For the affordable housing organizations working with Enterprise Community Partners (ECP) on single-family rehabs, employing their Green Single Family Rehabilitation Specifications 2008 may be all that you need to do, or, use these specs to drive your green project scope and trade contractor high performance scopes or work.

Now it’s your turn. How have you greened your building project documentation?