The City of Seattle's Green Building Team developed the following task list to assist City project managers working on LEED™ buildings identify actions needed to facilitate the use of the LEED Rating System™ on their projects. Although developed for City managers of publicly owned projects, this list is handy for many projects going through LEED™ certification.

Project Conception

• Evaluate current building stock for renovation or adaptive reuse.
• Develop building concepts to maximize fulfillment of LEED™ criteria.

CIP Process (Project Authorization)

• Budget for LEED™ process costs in project development, adding incremental construction first costs (earlier consideration of LEED™ will impact costs less; experience thus far indicates that LEED™ measures may add up to 6% for projects less than $5million and 4% for $5-10million projects).
  

Site Acquisition

• Use LEED™ to evaluate site purchase alternatives (credit opportunities, e.g., brownfield, wind, water, etc.
  

Conceptual Masterplan

• Define program and scope with LEED™ credit opportunities in mind.
  

Proforma

• Consider LEED™ opportunities with the Department of Finance, property management, etc.
  

Consultant Selection

• In RFQ and RFP, include language seeking consultant team with experience in sustainable design and the LEED Rating System™. The City of Seattle has assembled a document with sample RFP/RFQ and contract language.
• Include evaluation questions related to sustainable design expertise in the consultant review process.
• Require that design services shall address LEED™ processes and documentation for LEED™ certification.

Design Process

• Register project with the United States Green Building Council.
• As part of conducting Pre-Design Meeting include all stakeholders, contractors and subcontractors to identify potential LEED™ points.
• Early in the design process, conduct a meeting with the design team and stakeholders to determine which LEED™ points are to be targeted and strategies to achieve desired LEED™ certification. Stakeholders should include a tenant representative and an Operations and Maintenance representative.
• Include LEED™ points at every design meeting as a regular agenda item.
• Conduct value engineering meeting with emphasis on maintaining LEED™ points targeted.
• Operations and Maintenance staff and commissioning agent must participate at every phase of the project.
• When analyzing building options related to LEED™ points, look at first costs, operation cost savings,in addition to environmental and occupant impact.
• Build in a cushion of several points over the minimum to ensure meeting the minimum goal, as a constingency measure (e.g., 33 + 2-4 points = 35-37 points).

Construction Documents

• Accommodate documentation for LEED™ certification. Include in specifications and organize necessary templates and protocols.
• Commissioning agents shall provide plan for appropriate documentation.
• Conduct Quality Assurance and Review including Sustainable Design LEED™ points.

Bidding

• During mandatory Pre-bid Walk-through discuss LEED™ requirements such as Construction Waste Management Plan, special submittals, Sustainably Certified wood procurement, etc.
• Do not include LEED™ items as alternative bids. If alternates are desired, use performance below LEED™ requirements as the alternates.
• Award contract with nedessary LEED™ items in base bid.

Construction

• Monitor and review submittal of all documentation by contractor to be submitted to USGBC.
• Evaluate substitution requests and materials submittals in view of achieving LEED™ certification.
• Construction meetings - include LEED™ as an agenda item at all meetings.
• Pre-Construction Meeting: require Construction Waste Management Plan, Schedule of Values for Recycled Products, Rapidly Renewable Materials, Sustainably Certified Wood products, etc.

Commissioning

• Include Commissioning Agent in all parts of the design process.
  

Users

• Educate building users about sustainable attributes of project and how to operate and maintain building (use pamphlets or meetings).
  

Post-Occupancy

• Submit formal application for LEED™ certification If conducting additional commissioning, include the contract for future commissioning.
• Include in building and maintenance plan a re-certification of the building systems.