GMI Theme Issue: 1SO 14001: Case Studies and Practical Experiences ISO 14001 and Design for the Environment A Strategy for Proactive Design in Building Design, Construction and Renovation Riva Krut Benchmark Environmental Consulting, USA Jim Strycharz New York City Transit Authority, USA The New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) is the largest urban mass transit system in the US. The subway system serves 4 million customers every weekday—1.1 billion riders a year. The bus system serves 550 million riders a year. Within the NYCTA, the department of capital programmes management (CPM) is responsible for design and construction management throughout NYCTA. It designs, builds or rehabilitates some $2.5 billion per annum of capital programmes, mainly though contractors—architects and builders—and their subcontractors. Currently, CPM is engaged in a 20-year capital © 180 1400» programme to bring the 100-year-old public transportation system up to date. The © Green building budget for the NYCTA’s capital programme for 2000-2004 is $17 billion. eee In mid-1998, CPM decided to develop an EMS based on ISO 14001. It was inter. ° Sonstuction ested in implementing a structured EMS as a basis for proactively controlling risk across ® Design fo the the whole life-cycle ofits projects, moving away from a culture where environmental pysic scar management was focused on asbestos abatement. e tovionmenal CPM was registered to ISO 14001 in mid-1999, becoming the first public entity in management the US and the first transit authority in the world to do so. The process of developing 7" its EMs had thrown up two critical issues: design for the environment (Df) and con- Ps, tractor management. This paper describes the process, challenges, progress by Octo- systems ber 1999 (some 18 months after the start), future direction and lessons learned. @ New Yor iy Dr Hts Keats preset of Ber bitrh mental Consahing She way 52 Benchmark Envronmenta the auphanenon of 904004 st CPM ow Consulting, 1118 Cental Ave ‘Mar c998 co now She connie and hin publ wrk vely Soe ea Seen FAS. RO E49. sce ata benchmarkenmsinds peng com en sow mindspring cam-benchmark Jr Strvchare the ds sor of the CPM FMS als prgectadhmstator she BAD com eats, internal Contos and Dspace of tel Controls and peut Pays at de NYC TA, Papurement Special Projects, Capital Programs ot Capied Progen Mt i He his wace 20 Wear caper Raseaeerel Tose TAC ae ‘ornrnani and emery Authonty 370 Jy Street, 10th Flooe, Brooklyn, HY 1201, USA GMI 28 -Yaver 999 69 Copyright 2000. All rights reserved.70 HIS PAPER DESCRIBES THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ISO 14001 AT NYCTA'S department of CPM. CPM designs and manages the construction of some $2 billion in capital projects per annum. The challenge of implementing ISO r4oo1 was to imple ment a system designed for a fixed manufacturing facility in a project-based organ- isation where most of the work is dehvered by contractors. ‘The challenges CPM faced were how to use ISO 14001 as an mstrument to implement design for environment (Df) principles, how to fit the ISO 14001 EMS model into a project based, public-sector organisation and, finally, how to use the EMS to manage contractors These three challenges are described in this paper. Why implement ISO 14001 at CPM? The catalyst and promoter of this project throughout was Ajay Singh, chief of internal controls and special projects. Singh's motivation was a mixture of personal conviction and political acuity: In my lifetame, I have seen the deleterious ampact of sndustralization and urbanization on the natural environment, Here at the Transit Authonty, we fice a paradox: we ate working with, an anherently sustasnable product—public transportation in New York City. But we don’t think of making the process of delivering this product more environmentally sound. The potential fora signficant ampact on the whole of New York City and all sts mbabstants and raders is just huge, and we were not even thinking about What we had are environmental management acuvibes focussed on meeting regulatory requirements. Asbestos abatement was the focus of our enviconmeatal management work We needed an EMS that could provide us with a structure to proactively control environ- miental issues across the whole fe-cyele of our design and construction projects. It was expecially cemicral that we focus not reactively om abatement, but proactiely on environmental ties from the pre-design stage. Such an EMS would allow us to control nsks, Costs, over-runs and so on, The question was, how could we achieve what was mn facta culture change an CPM, a typical pubhe-sector organreation? Tn 1998, Tsaw an opportunity m ISO t4oot Here was a fag that we could put n the ground, something that we could rally troops around, and something that we could implement here at CPM and then roll out through the larger transit organvzation With these motivations, Singh did not only name the flag but also waved it. He sold the vision to his manager, the senior vice-president and chief engineer of CPM, Mysore Nagaraja, ‘Nagaraja responded with complete support, He was particularly interested in the imple mentation of a structured, measurable system to identify and quantify CPM's environ mental impacts. He responded with a challenge to Singh and his staff to obtain registration to ISO 1goor within nme months. Step 1: Implementing Of through ISO 14001 nical and regulatory com- The first job was to shift the minds of the engineers from t pliance sssues to the upstream design phase. One of the key implementers of the EMS ‘was Tom Abdallah, senior engineer in the environmental engineering diviston (FED): ‘When I was first asked to desenbe the lifecycle of a bunlding and construction proyect, Tsaud, well, first we dig a hole Boy, have Ihave we—changed our perspective since then. We have realized that our prmespal environmental rmpact 1 at the ps ele that we try to manage environmental wsues, the more e lest retumn you get on your effort ygn and master pla stage. The later an the project hi chficule a 8 to be saccessfil an As Nagaraja emphasises: GMI 28 Winter 999 Copyright 2000. All rights reserved.150 14001 AND DESIGN FOR THE ENVIRONMENT ‘We have to think of ourselves as a desig and construction management operation, not as con Fortunately for the EMS advocates, the concept of emphasising the importance of getting things nght at the design stage was, in any case, getting attention at the highest levels in the organisation, A new CPM procedure on master planning proved to be completely consistent with what the EMS was trying to do, A master plan 1s created for any large capital proyect, to define it and set a preliminary budget. It is on the basis of this that desgn alternatives are proposed, a design selected and budget fixed, and bids put out to ’M’s new master plan procedure emphasised that careful thinking was required at the pre-design stage. It also provided an opportumty in the prelininary master plan budget for the master plan manager to project forward the quantitative and qualitative benefits of the facility 1 use. This provided an opportuntty to make environmental per= formance issues a consideration in the se show how implementing the EMS was completely consistent with the master plan proce~ dure—to show the orgamsation that we were not introducmg something new, but imple~ menting with the EMS as a key existing strategic objective. This integration was stressed atall EMS training, and all training m the new procedure had a short session on the EMS. What does fe mean in design and construction? ‘This issue 1s increasingly coming, under discussion in the US and, particularly, in New York City as it enters the a1st century ‘Two helpful developments to CPM were, first, the development by the US Gri ing Council of a certification system called LEED—Leadership im Energy and Environ- mental Design (LEED 1999). This provides a system to certify a building that hay been designed and built to a level that exceeds those required by the best regulations in the Us (State or federal). The advantage of this for CPM is that a facility can apply for a LEED ‘medal that could be placed on a building that recognises design and construction, rather than improved environmental performance for the users, The second development was the production of a workbook High Performance Building Guidelines (City of New York 1999) by the City of New York Office of Sustainable Design and Construction, Copies of this were circulated to environmental engincers and key other managers; Hilary Brown, assistant commissioner at the Office of Sustainable Design and Construction, brefed the FED. CPM spent time learning about these imitiatives and broadcasting this knowledge through the orgamsation in its intensive training programme for environmental engi- nncers as well as master plan, design and construction managers architects ection of design alternatives. We were able to n Build Step : Fitting ISO 14001 into a project-based, public-sector organisation One of the biggest challenges of implementing 180 t4oot at CPM was that there was not an immediate fit between CPM’s operation and the organisational assumptions of the standard. Although the text of ISO 14001 notes that the standard was written for all sorts of orgamsations, 1 assumes that the EMS is being implemented im a fixed facihty such as a manufacturing operation. The assumption is that the facility controls most of its opera~ tions—and consequently its environmental impacts. In contrast, CPM 1s a project-based, service organisation, Most of the projects are delivered through third parties—architects and building contractors—who are subcontracted to do some of the design and all of the building. A typical CPM project nught be a bus station design-and-build project in the Bronx, a project that could take five years, cost some $50 millon, and involve both intemal professionals and contracted specialists and service providers, e.g. an architect, and the builder GMI 28 winter 1999 n Copyright 2000. All rights reserved.