Value Beyond Cost Savings - Green Building Finance Consortium

Value Beyond Cost Savings: How to Underwrite Sustainable Properties• While the benefits of retro commissioning will diminish over an average of fouryears, the initiative is more than paid for in the first year of savings, and the fouryearnet present value of the savings averages $0.64 per square foot.• CMU’s BIDS has also identified four building case studies that demonstrate anaverage of 17.4% total building energy savings annually due to continuouscommissioning. These four studies demonstrate that continuous commissioningyields average annual savings of $0.30 per square foot for energy alone, withfacility management and failure costs not yet quantified.A key risk factor influencing cost and quality is the availability of competent/experiencedcommissioning agent(s). Survey respondents have experienced problems in retainingquality commissioning agents due to the lack of qualified commissioning agents.Another risk is the lack of generally accepted industry standards for a general scope ofcommissioning work leads to widely varying proposals in terms of scope and costs.Additionally, if an owner is unwilling to pay for the heightened level of coordinationbetween design, construction and commissioning teams, risk of team members not buyinginto commissioning increases, making effective commissioning difficult.Sometimes commissioning problems arise due to the identity of the commissioning agent.Contractors or the engineer of record may have conflicts of interest if they also serve ascommissioning agents.Commissioning can also run into problems when the commissioning agent is brought ontoo late in the process. Expensive change orders and lack of team buy-in can result.Commissioning of the building envelope is seen as an increasingly important issue withsustainable properties. 20 Uncontrolled rainwater penetration, condensation and moistureingress are three of the most common threats to the long-term durability of a property.Commissioning can be valuable for most building types and situations, but is particularlyvaluable for the following types of buildings:• Large or complex buildings (size and complexity not always linked)• Buildings with very large loads on the mechanical equipment, such as laboratories• Buildings with highly variant occupancy levels• Buildings in extreme climatesWhile best practices for commissioning can get detailed, six straightforward steps can go along way to improving commissioning:20 Daniel Lemieux, AIA, “Trust, But Verify... Building Enclosure Commissioning in Sustainable Design,” Real EstateIssues, Volume 33, Number 3, 2008.46