Developing a Business Case Using Whole Building Performance Measurement

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since 1998, the U.S. Navy's Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) has had a policy for incorporating sustainable design principles into new building construction. The policy states it is the intent of NAVFAC to accomplish this within the given budget constraints and while meeting customer requirements. Programming a building using a first cost approach instead of a life cycle cost approach is one of the biggest challenges for integrating sustainable design into Navy projects. Due to this hurdle, an attempt to develop a Navy-specific business case was undertaken. Through this process, it was discovered that consistent data were not being collected for all applicable Navy buildings. Therefore, the current business case information being used by the Navy is the conglomeration of existing business case analysis in the literature. Although this business case information is useful, there is still a need for collecting and analyzing the Navy business case. To develop the Navy-specific business case, NAVFAC is developing program metrics to capture the status of buildings in the design and construction phase, and started to collect whole building cost and performance data for 14 buildings (7 sustainably designed and 7 traditionally designed buildings) to capture data on the existing inventory of sustainably designed buildings. Performance measurement data are being collected on water, energy, operations and maintenance, waste generation, purchasing, occupant satisfaction, and transportation. The building cost and performance data will be collected for a minimum of 12 months. Both of these data collection and analysis efforts have offered lessons learned that will be shared alongside the current Navy business case information.