Two
successful training sessions have been held for
contractors and sub contractors interested in Green
Advantage®. One
was held in
Fort Worth
in August and another in
Dallas
in September. All
those who take the course and pass the open-book, multiple
choice exam will become Green Advantage®
certified practitioners.
The
course is tailored to the contractor and subcontractor,
giving them insight into their role in the successful
execution of the design intent of sustainable buildings.
The LEED® system is used as the
framework and the facilitators go through credit by credit
sharing case studies, successes and failures.
Attendees learn the traps of boiler plate specs,
what is potentially an expensive credit and which ones are
just good business practices that they are probably
already utilizing.
For
those aspiring to attain LEED® Certification,
an Innovation Credit is now available if a significant
percentage of contractors and sub contractors working on
the project are Green Advantage® Certified at
the time of commencement of construction. According to the
Ruling issued by USGBC, "[This] proposal is
acceptable for achieving an Innovation Credit; it is
robust and expected to achieve positive benefits for your
project and toward the education and transformation of the
construction sector."
This is in addition to the point for having a LEED®
AP on the team.
Contractors
should be prepared to start seeing the requirement for
Green Advantage® certified practitioners in
RFQs for LEED® buildings. Private training
sessions are available at a discount if your company has
at least 30 people interested in certification. The first
of our private sessions will begin this month.
Contact ga@usgbcnorthtexas.org
for more information about the private workshops or if you
would like to placed on the notification list for our next
local workshop.
Please
note that this course deals with the LEED®
system, but is not intended to prepare attendees to take
the LEED® AP exam.
It is a different certification more heavily
focused on construction and the contractor’s
responsibility in the execution of the LEED®
process.
Jane
Ahrens is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at The
University of Texas, in addition to being part of
the Green Advantage faculty. For additional
information regarding this article, please contact Jane at
Jahrens@uta.edu.
All comments are the sole responsibility of the author.
This article was originally posted 10/26/06.
