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Like the famous lyrics of Bob Dylan, 鈥淭he times they are a-changin鈥�.鈥� One can either choose to ride the wave or be washed out.

The pillars of health, safety and welfare in the building industry are now standing on a 鈥渢riple bottom line鈥� foundation. The triple bottom line is a way to assess environmental impact, human experience and return on investment as a decision-making filter. It is a process, and not something that is plugged into a building. Sustainability is not about a select group of materials or innovative technologies; instead it鈥檚 looking at the long-term effects of all of those building components on health, safety and welfare for people and the environment.

Safety also is not just about protective gear; it requires a cultural change in construction. The protocols around safety in the 1970s literally made a life-changing impact by avoiding accidents, but the change was not easily adopted.

Green building has endured similar backlash on construction sites. This is despite the fact that the benefits of a holistic approach that takes human wellness into consideration not only avoids problems, but enriches comfort, productivity, tenant satisfaction and long-term health by avoiding chronic illnesses caused by toxic building products.

In the U.S. we learned our lesson the hard way in the early 2000s, when millions of dollars were spent removing cheap drywall purchased from China that was turning copper wiring black. We realized that people鈥檚 respiratory systems were also enduring that damage. The cheapest up-front solution actually ended up being the most costly. It is time for a new value proposition.

As a result, there has been a movement for more disclosure from our manufacturing companies to avoid these health risks. LEED started transforming the market with a prescriptive approach to low-emitting materials. The Pharos Project created by the Healthy Building Network went further to support the Living Building Challenge to ban chemicals of concern on their 鈥渞ed list鈥� from those buildings. Last year the International Living Future Institute added to this effort by launching the Declare program to advocate for more transparency from our manufacturers.

There have been synergies between numerous rating systems, codes and standards to create a healthier built environment, and lean construction can streamline that overlap. For example, The Construction Indoor Air Quality Management Plans at one time primarily implemented on 鈥済reen building鈥� projects are now considered best practices, and can correspond with safety meetings, quality assurance tasks and submittal tracking. When safety and sustainability are set aside from the typical design and construction process it can become a point of contention within a team, because it is consumes human and financial resources. Safety and sustainability need to be integrated within every phase of a project to clearly define roles and responsibilities.

EcoREAL Solutions created a Lean LEED tool kit to eradicate the price premium of LEED through a streamlined process that integrates the requirements into the specifications, pre-bid materials, and construction management tools that fit the construction vernacular. It is a teach-a-man-to-fish mentality to take sustainability out of the hands of a few expensive experts into the palms of everyone designing, building, operating and living within the built environment. Our Green Building Integrative Management approach makes sustainability and safety seamless. We need more tools that make sustainability equitable and achievable for all project teams and budgets.

Similar to safety, sustainability is just a new hat that every decision needs to be filtered through from the drafting table to the 鈥渂oots on the ground.鈥� Lean construction looks for synergies within processes, which is where true sustainability is attained through optimized financial, environmental and human performance.

California鈥檚 Sustainability Task Force has been working on quantifying the value of safety, productivity and health. It concluded that it can add $36.90-$55.30 per square foot to the 20-year net present value of a green building via adaptation of its building code to CalGreen that emulates the LEED framework. Consequently, we see more state reach codes preparing to mandate an integrated approach to safety, health and sustainability.

The next wave is Well Building, which marries best practices in design and construction with evidence-based health and wellness interventions. After seven years of research with the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic, professionals from the building industry and medical field have collaborated on a holistic standard to address human health in the built environment. The seven concepts of air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind consider the long-term impact of the built environment to our overall wellness on a physiological and psychological level. The ROI now includes happiness, because it leads to tenant retention, recruiting talent and overall performance 鈥� as well as the cost avoidance of an unhealthy environment.

Similar to a university trying to recruit top students and athletes by having the best facilities, companies such as Google are incorporating these Well Building features into their corporate campuses to attract that same pool of talent.

We have an obligation as professionals in the built environment to support John F. Kennedy鈥檚 statement that 鈥淚t is our task in our time and in our generation, to hand down undiminished to those who come after us, as was handed down to us by those who went before, the natural wealth and beauty which is ours.鈥� This is not a conversation for the fringe, but at the forefront of every conversation that supports health, safety and welfare to not just survive but thrive.

The SafeBuild Alliance will be discussing this topic at our next meeting on March 9, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the Oregon Convention Center. I will join panelists Lourdes Javillionair of Intel, Elaine Dabrowski of OHSU, John Mess of ZGF Architects, Bill Drinkward of Hoffman Construction and Steve Collier of Rosendin Electric to discuss the convergence of Lean and safety.

Summer Gorder is owner and president of EcoREAL Solutions. Contact her at 503-303-8367 or [email protected]. The SafeBuild Alliance is a nonprofit organization working to achieve incident-free construction projects through the transformation of workplace cultures. For more information or to join, visit www.safebuildalliance.com.