Professionals and stakeholders across a variety of industries and roles have a part to play in getting Denver's buildings to their Energize Denver Performance Targets. See how you can do your part and work effectively with the huge network of people who make our buildings run smoothly and efficiently.
These guides are based on content originally developed by the Institute for Market Transformation in collaboration with DPR Construction for the Building Innovation Hub. They were supported with funding and resources provided by the District of Columbia’s Department of Energy & Environment.
It is not yet common practice for general contractors to be brought onto a project team during early design phases. However, integrated project delivery—the process of bringing on critical team members early in a project process—is a best practice for creating a truly collaborative project team and the best end product. General contractors bring their knowledge about construction costs, material availability, and the expertise of their trusted tradespeople to help the design process. General contractors, when embedded in early conversations about building performance, can help building owners meet their project performance targets and budget goals.
Use pre-construction to set the stage for success
Project pursuit
- Enhance your marketing strategy. Develop a marketing and business development strategy that showcases how owners should engage with you early in the design process, which can help owners achieve compliance with the city’s Performance Requirements in a cost-effective way. Ensure they see the value that you provide by assisting with feasibility studies, which can include information about energy efficiency strategies, projected costs, and return on investment timelines.
Contract method
- Understand the benefits and drawbacks of various contracting structures. Understand how various contracting options, such as integrated project delivery, design build, and design assist, might benefit your client’s long-term performance goals.
- Engage with your trades. Your subcontractors, trade partners, and subject matter experts are the authorities on building products and systems. They understand design ramifications, construction implications, opportunities for improvement, and cost. They should be engaged early and often to help find the most cost-effective and efficient solutions for your clients.
- Learn how to provide quick financial feedback. Use technology and your subject matter experts to provide quick financial data to your clients. As a general contractor, you control the budget and therefore should be providing real-time cost data for sustainable design strategies in order to better inform the owner and aid with design decision-making.
Value engineering process
- Work with the design team on value engineering efforts. Help the design team focus value engineering efforts towards maintaining building efficiency. It’s important to keep energy and cost ROI in perspective when making these decisions. Communicate with the owner and ensure they understand the potential operational impacts of value-engineering major building systems, especially as it relates to compliance with the Performance Requirements and the city’s building codes.
Prefabrication
- Present potential prefabrication solutions to the owner and design teams. Prefabricated building components not only lower energy intensity during the construction process, but they allow for a more uniform construction quality and the ability to conduct testing off site to ensure efficiency and eliminate rework.
Trade partner vetting
- Vet your potential subcontractors. Ensure that the trade partners you hire are focused on the overall sustainability goals of the project and have budget in their scope to provide expertise, such as design consultation or product selection, to meet project performance goals.
Ensure construction maximizes efficiency and equity
Optimizing site operations
- Reduce energy use in your construction site operations. Start by tracking energy use and run time for fossil fuel-powered equipment to determine emissions. Provide renewable energy, including mobile generators, where possible for temporary power. Use LED lighting on a schedule with motion detection sensors. Reduce the use of standby power settings and turn everything off when not in use, including HVAC systems. Use electric equipment when available. Reduce or eliminate idling of construction vehicles.
Testing of building components
- Create mockups of key energy and façade elements. Mockups should be used as a tool to test and ensure the highest level of construction quality possible. They are an opportunity for on-site training and workforce development, to reduce potentially intensive rework, and an opportunity to verify that the component meets or exceeds the specifications and design intent.
Site visits
- Make the most of site visits. Collaboration between the contracting and design teams throughout construction not only educates all parties about desired outcomes and best practices, but will help inform future work. Utilize site visits as an opportunity to educate the design team about how design intent might be impacted by realities of construction and installation.
Leave your client with closeout tools for systems optimization
Commissioning
- Clearly define and execute commissioning for electrical, mechanical, water, and façade systems. Ensure the system for measuring, tracking, and documenting what is in the field is organized and can be used as a tool and an opportunity to train the building’s operations personnel.
Turnover
- Streamline turnover for ownership and operations teams. Use tools to help measure utility use and provide operations and maintenance guidelines for optimizing performance. Ensure that all operational and maintenance team members have received proper training on how to optimize system performance.
Engineers and energy modelers are the technical experts that bring project performance goals to fruition. The analytical thinking and leadership these professionals bring to building system design, construction, and operation is vital for a project to achieve design targets, and this technical understanding of the complicated interconnection between building systems is critical to engage early in the design process.
Take the Lead
- Check your projects’ past performance. Denver buildings 25,000 sq. ft. and larger have been required to benchmark their building’s energy performance for five years and counting. That information is public, which means there’s an opportunity for you to check out how your past projects are performing and to see which of your clients are ahead of the curve and which might need your additional support on future projects.
- Understand the latest regulations. Ensure that you are up to speed on the latest rules and regulations about the city’s Performance Requirements and updated building codes, and how they might affect your clients and your work. The city offers a vendor training program to have your contact information listed as a resource for building owners.
- Identify which of your current projects are covered under the Performance Requirements. The Energize Denver Performance Requirements cover commercial and multifamily buildings 25,000 sq. ft. and larger. Understand how your current projects may or may not meet the Performance Requirements and talk to your clients about long-term compliance options. If working on a renovation, encourage your clients to talk to their tenants and property managers to determine opportunities for reducing energy consumption that are out of your design control (i.e. requiring LED light fixtures, adjusting HVAC setpoints, etc.).
- Understand how performance is measured and tracked. Familiarize yourself with ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, which is the tool that buildings owners use to submit their benchmarking data, in order to understand what will impact a building’s Site Energy Use Intensity score. This knowledge can used to guide clients through a highly technical decision-making process.
- Improve your energy modeling skills. Build your energy modeling and parametric modeling skills and ensure that the value of these tools is understood by both the architectural and ownership teams. Reference ASHRAE 209, which describes the process for energy modeling throughout a project, to get familiar with analytical software that can aid in early design decisions.
- Learn how buildings can save energy. Become familiar with energy efficiency opportunities in existing buildings by reviewing ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 100, a resource that offers a number of measures to both help set and meet performance targets.
Evaluate your renovation project’s current performance
- Request the scorecard. Help your client to understand the building’s current performance by accessing the Energize Denver Map, which provides information on how a building performed over the past year and compares performance to that of similar buildings. This information can help give you and the building owner a sense of how the building is performing.
- Ensure that your client has audited their property. If the building owner has not already done so, advise them to get an on-site energy audit to better understand overall building characteristics, equipment, and performance. If they request additional information the U.S. Department of Energy developed A Guide to Energy Audits can be used as a point of reference. There are three levels of progressively more in-depth audits. Discuss with your energy auditor which level of audit would be most fitting for your project goals and budget and consider minimum requirements for energy audits for Energize Denver.
- Conduct an on-site assessment. To compliment an energy audit report, engineers should conduct an additional site assessment to:
- Review available engineering and architectural drawings of the building to evaluate building systems and determine opportunities for improvement.
- Walk the building or space with the maintenance and/or engineering teams to undercover additional information about the building’s systems, controls, and operation.
- Assess the building façade’s performance and work with architects to understand implications of potential upgrades and/or changes.
Integrate the energy modeler into the project team
- Communicate the need for early and iterative energy modeling. Explain the need for early and iterative energy modeling to help the client meet their building performance goals. Ensure they understand potential risks associated with not executing that work.
- Coordinate with the whole design team. Ensure that the energy modeling team is coordinating early and often with the project’s engineers and architects. The AIA has provided specific guidance for architects for how to integrate energy modeling into the design process. Ensure that all related consultants understand the information uncovered through the energy modeling effort.
- Create an easy-to-read energy report. Engineers and energy modelers should work together to create an easily understandable report for the building owner and other project team members that clearly identifies and summarizes recommendations and opportunities. This should include feasibility and costs of each option. Broad categories for consideration include:
- Base building mechanical systems
- Common area lighting
- Sensors and controls
- Tenant lighting, plug loads, and mechanical systems
- Retail and ground-floor tenant systems
- Operator and occupant training
- Engage directly with the decision-makers. Discuss the report with the building owner to identify an action plan to incorporate the findings into the project. Schedule a time to meet with the on-site building engineer, property manager, and tenants to explain upcoming upgrades and operational changes that will be made.
Tenants have their own business to run, so they rely heavily on their broker to provide information and counsel about meeting their space requirements. As a tenant broker, you are uniquely positioned to help tenants understand the long-term implications of their leasing decisions, including how efficiency, health, and safety measures can affect everything from operating costs to worker productivity to Environmental, Social, and Governance reporting. By staying current with related trends and local policies, you will guide your clients to the right choices, and gain or maintain their trust—and their referrals.
Take the Lead
- Understand the latest regulations. Ensure that you are up to speed on the latest rules and regulations about the Denver's Building Performance Requirements and updated building codes, and how they might impact your clients’ site selection and lease negotiations. The Performance Requirements set minimum building energy performance targets for existing buildings. Buildings that are performing worse than the targets for their property type will be required to improve their performance.
- Become an expert in green leasing. Green leases—also called energy efficient leases, high performance leases, or landlord-tenant aligned leases—refers to language in a landlord-tenant lease agreement that helps to ensure sustainable and healthy workplaces through smart design, construction, and operational standards. The Green Lease Library, a resource provided by IMT and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Alliance, also offers numerous resources on how to institute high-performance leases. The team can also get recognized for integrating this approach into practice through the Green Lease Leaders recognition program.
Ask the right questions before starting the letter of intent (LOI)
- Ask your client about their sustainability goals. Some clients will have strong sustainability goals for their business. Others will have specific requirements for their space, such as a desire to pursue Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, that the base building be certified for health and wellness considerations, or that they want a space that allows them to comply with greenhouse gas reporting requirements. Asking a client questions about their sustainability goals, both in their business and their operations, shows that you are thinking about adding value, by aligning their goals with the transaction.
Get building performance data during the site search
- Check the building’s energy performance. Denver's commercial and multifamily buildings 25,000 sq. ft. and larger have been required to benchmark their building’s energy performance for more than five years. That information is public, which means there’s an opportunity for you to check out how a building is performing. This is important because it is an indicator as to how efficiently your candidate building’s systems are operated, which can affect tenant thermal comfort and indoor environmental quality. If a building has a high ENERGY STAR score, it means it has been historically well-managed with lower operating expenses.
- Ask if the building is likely to be compliant with the Performance Requirements. The answer to the question might affect a tenant’s operational expenses.
- Ask if there are any building sustainability achievements the tenant should be aware of. Ask if there is anything the building has achieved from a sustainability perspective, such as awards, certifications, milestones, or progress towards goals, that the owner would like to share with a prospective tenant.
As you enter the LOI stage, follow up with additional questions.
Ask about the base building
- Current building performance: Is the building going to meet the target and be compliant with the first performance target year? If not, what is the plan of action to bring it into compliance?
- Recent capital improvements: Have there been any recent infrastructure upgrades to major building systems, such as mechanical and lighting systems or the building envelope? Note that upgrading infrastructure-related equipment not only improves energy efficiency, but also improves tenant thermal comfort, indoor air quality, and noise associated with HVAC equipment.
- Renewable energy: Does the building have on-site renewable energy or a green purchasing power agreement in place? Note that, due to available incentives in the city, a typical renewable energy system investment will have a shorter payback period.
- Plans for improvement: Has the building recently had an energy audit or undergone retro-commissioning? If so, ask to see the report. If not, ask if there’s a plan to do so. Note that energy audits investigate the current condition of a building and provide recommendations for energy improvements. Retro-commissioning investigates and fine-tunes existing equipment to optimize operations.
- Does the owner have a strategic energy management plan to implement the recommendations from an energy audit? If so, what is the progress on implementation? If not, is there an intent to develop one?
- Which performance improvements will affect the owner’s capital expenditures versus the tenant’s potential operational expenditures?
- Certifications: What green building certifications does the building have? Is the owner planning to pursue any additional ones, such as LEED Existing Buildings, Operations & Maintenance (EBOM)?
- If an owner has, or is intending to pursue, EBOM certification, several of the credits include items such as energy audits and retro-commissioning, as well as a thorough review of the building’s mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and, if applicable, renewable energy systems by a third-party engineering firm.
- EBOM includes other, non-energy related credits such as green cleaning and integrated pest management that might also benefit your client.
- Does the building have any other certifications such as a high Walk Score? This information may help your client fine tune a building selection because a high Walk Score may help in employee recruitment and retention. If your tenant does GHG accounting, travel to and from a site may need to be tracked by your client.
- Building Management System (BMS): What type of building management system (BMS) does the building have? This system controls the building’s mechanical system and potentially the lighting systems in common area.
- Mechanical systems: How is the base building mechanical system controlled?
- Many buildings have transitioned from pneumatic (compressed air) to a digital BMS. A BMS-controlled system allows for remote monitoring and control of the mechanical equipment, which can increase tenant comfort and energy efficiency.
- What is the age of major mechanical equipment, including central plants, chillers, boilers, air handling units, and rooftop units?
- New equipment tends to be more reliable, less noisy, and more energy efficient, as well as tends to increase thermal comfort.
- Is the building using or capable of “free cooling” in the form of waterside or airside economizing?
- Buildings capable of air-side economizing introduce more outdoor air to the building, which is not only more energy efficient, but also increases the ventilation within the building.
- Have the HVAC motors for pumps and fans been upgraded with variable frequency drives (VFDs)?
- VFDs provide the ability of the motors to ramp up and down based on demand, which results in energy savings.
- What is the air quality in the building? Is there an opportunity to upgrade to a higher-grade filtration system, should the tenant wish to do so?
- This should include a description of the filtration systems that treats the supply air being delivered to the tenant’s space and a description of any air quality sensors that are used to control ventilation rates.
- Lighting: Are their high-efficiency lighting fixtures and automatic lighting controls used throughout the building and parking garage?
- Does the building have sensors to optimize the lighting in sync with occupancy and available natural lighting?
- Building envelope: What is the condition of the building’s envelope (including walls, glass, roof, etc.)?
- A well maintained building envelope will affect occupant comfort, air quality, and the amount of energy needed to heat or cool the space.
- Is there a preventative maintenance program in place to ensure building envelope weatherproofing is in optimal condition?
Ask about the tenant’s space
- Tenant assistance: Will the landlord provide any incentives or assistance for energy-efficient upgrades within the tenant space?
- Items such as plug load controls, lighting fixtures and controls, and mechanical equipment within the tenant space can have dramatic, positive effects on energy efficiency and the landlord may be willing to provide incentives for such improvements.
- Sustainability guidelines: Does the building owner provide sustainable design and construction guidelines for tenants?
- Guidelines like this (such as those found in certain LEED credits) help brokers find potential building owners that share the same sustainability goals as their client. Additional resources are available, such as those about sustainable leasing and operational guidelines.
- Submetering: Can the tenant’s space be separately submetered to measure the tenant’s individual energy consumption? If the space will not be submetered, how can a tenant determine individual usage?
- It is important to measure and track your energy usage, and submetering gives a tenant that opportunity. From a billing perspective, submetering protects both the tenant and the landlord by ensuring the tenant pays for only the energy they consume, rather than a pro-rata share for the whole building. Submetering can also protect the tenant under the Performance Requirements, where they can demonstrate that their energy consumption is in compliance with any lease requirements.