As much as possible, I like to highlight various forms of construction contract documents.  In most of my green building presentations over the past few months, I have talked about the "soon to be released" Green Building Addendum from ConsensusDOCS.  Well, that day has finally come!

New ConsensusDOCS Green Building Addendum

Based upon my preliminary review of the 310 Green Building Addendum, I am confident to say that the blogosphere of architects, engineers, owners, contractors, LEED AP-ers, and attorneys is going to be jumping.  There are a lot of new terms, such as Elected Physical Green Measures and Elected Green Status; there is a new contractual party, called the Green Building Facilitator (or "GBF"); and there is a meaty "Risk Allocation" section in the document. 

The first seven sections of the 310 Green Building Addendum include the following:

  1. General Principles, including an acknowledgment that Green Measures are being incorporated into the project that affect the roles and responsibilities of the parties.
  2. Definitions, which introduce and define all the new players, roles and responsibilities.
  3. Green Requirements and Procedures, which are elected by the owner.
  4. Green Building Facilitator, which addresses who this person will be and what his role will be.
  5. Green Status, which sets the targeted status (i.e., LEED Certified Silver).
  6. Green Measures, which outlines the steps to achieve the Green Status.
  7. Plans and Specifications, which helps incorporate the green measures into the underlying contract documents.

Section 8 addresses risk allocation, which is where I will probably spend a couple of days digesting.  In this section, you will find issues such as:

  • The role of the contractor during the process, as well as a provision that limits the contractor’s responsibility for performing certain services. 
  • A waiver of consequential damages, which is the provision that every green attorney will want to take a look at first.
  • A general limitation of liability provision that addresses the failure to attain the targeted status, as well as, the failure to receive any intended benefits to the environment.

One cursory review … and I did not find anything absolutely surprising.  I was interested to see that the contract document was not LEED-driven, meaning that the drafters wrote the green measure provisions and the green status provisions broad enough to include all existing and any future green building programs.