Developing a Business Case Using Whole Building Performance Measurement

Abstract

Since 1998, the U.S. Navy’s Naval Facilities Engineering Command
(NAVFAC) has had a policy for incorporating sustainable design prin-
ciples 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. There-
fore, 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 build-
ings) 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, oc-
cupant satisfaction, and transportation. The building cost and perfor-
mance 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.