A recent article in a Canadian construction industry publication argues that Canada’s green building experience has – to date – avoided legal repercussions arising out of green construction projects.
Just before the July 4 holiday, Fireman’s Fund, which launched the green building property insurance market back in 2006, released what it is calling its “next generation” of green building policy endorsements.
One area of the property insurance market which has seen an increase in green building policy endorsements over the past year is the builder’s risk market. GRELJ takes a look at exactly what builder’s risk is meant to insure, and then reviews some of the available green building endorsements to such policies that are currently available.
Green building consultant Jerry Yudelson delivered two keynote addresses earlier this month at an event sponsored by the Central Texas Green Building Council. According to a press release, during the course of his remarks Yudelson “presented clear evidence that high-level green outcomes add significant value to buildings. ‘What part of a 30 percent increase in value from LEED certification is hard to communicate?’ He challenged architects and engineers to do a better job of advocating for green building with their clients. ‘You are doing your clients a disservice by letting them build projects without LEED certification,’ he said. ‘It almost amounts to dereliction of your duty as professionals.’” As you likely know, this latter remark about the design professional’s responsibilities in the green building space is exactly the opposite of what many construction attorneys have been preaching over the past few years as best practices for architects and engineers. Putting aside for purposes of this article any analysis of Mr. Yudelson’s claims of 30 percent increases in value for LEED-certified buildings, I think his remarks provide a good opportunity to review the risk management implications of the design professional’s representations to his or her clients about the possibilities and potential pitfalls of green building, including the LEED certification process.
Recently, there have been a number of articles suggesting that the risks associated with green roofs have been overblown. Over the past few days, I’ve spent some time looking for more concrete examples of green roof-related risks in practice. I started by looking for case law where a plaintiff alleged an attractive nuisance claim against the owner of a building arising out of a green roof or other rooftop landscaping. Westlaw did not return any results entirely on point, but I did find a number of interesting attractive nuisance decisions which I may present in a subsequent post here at GRELJ. The much more practical research that I turned up was the following except from an article by Kelly Luckett, the self-proclaimed “Green Roof Guy” who writes a column for greenroofs.com. In a column from the very end of 2008, Mr. Luckett describes how uneducated project teams may unwittingly expose themselves to unanticipated risks stemming from the maintenance requirements of green roof installations. His remarks also reflect a number of key points we’ve made consistently both here at GRELJ and over at gbNYC with respect to the additional risk management strategies demanded by new green building technologies and third-party certification programs.
It may have been lost a bit in the recent discussion over LEED 2009 decertification, but last month Marsh released a new report that solicited feedback from construction industry executives on the risks that they perceive as arising out of green design and construction across ten risk categories: brand and competitive edge or reputation, project consultants and subcontractors, education, finance, building performance, green building regulations, return on investment, standards of care and legal, supply chain and technology. To obtain the feedback, Marsh convened four forums in in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City in late 2008 and early 2009, which were attended by a total of 55 industry executives. While the executive summary to the report, which is titled “Green Building: Assessing the Risks, Feedback from the Construction Industry,” acknowledges that its findings “might be characterized as anecdotal,” I do think that the report is important to consider in the context of the types of risks that stakeholders identified as the most salient.
Victor Schinnerer’s most recent quarterly report has some interesting commentary on the increased risk that the new LEED Accredited Professional (“LEED AP”) program may be creating for professionals that participate on LEED projects. Specifically, on page 4, the report notes that the new LEED AP program, which divides LEED APs into three tiers of increasing expertise, from LEED Green Associate, to LEED AP with specialization, and up to LEED AP Fellow, “has significantly changed the value of the program and the risks to [the] program’s participants.” However, although the report acknowledges that “[m]embers of the upgraded LEED AP [Fellow] program now will face a higher standard of care for their services,” it also states that “[c]urrently this increased exposure is a manageable risk. Current claims information does not indicate a need for additional insurance premiums to cover the exposure created by the higher standard of care.” I think that this latter point is critical- as I wrote previously here at GRELJ, most professional liability insurance policies contain an exclusion for assumptions of liability that are not imposed by law (i.e., because the LEED AP Fellow designation implies that the design professional will perform at a higher level than the prevailing common law standard, the design professional may not be covered for any resulting claims of negligent design services arising out of disputed green design services). It seems to me that if the LEED AP fellow designation implies a higher standard of care than is prevalent in the industry, this type of form exclusion would come into play. Accordingly, I am very curious to see if there is any reaction from insurance industry professionals on this crucial issue.
As you may know, USGBC’s LEED v3 program launched this past Monday, April 27. Project teams currently pursuing LEED certification under any of the Version 2 programs can opt into LEED v3 for no additional registration fee through the end of the year. The Version 2 programs will be available to project teams for registration until June 26; after that date, all projects must proceed with registration under LEED v3. LEED v3 is comprised of what USGBC calls “LEED 2009″ revisions to the suite of LEED rating systems (other than Homes and Neighborhood Development, which are not changing under v3), a new online interface for project teams, and a shift in the administration of the LEED certification process to the Green Building Certification Institute (“GBCI”). USGBC calls the LEED 2009 credit revisions “a reorganization of the existing commercial and institutional LEED rating systems along with several key advancements.” The revisions contemplate harmonization (i.e., credits and prerequisites are consistent across all LEED 2009 rating systems), credit weighting (i.e., greater emphasis on energy efficiency), and regionalization (up to four bonus credits for projects that address a local environmental issue of import). Although they are important to review for background purposes, the thrust of this article is not to detail the mechanics of the LEED v3 program. Rather, a number of the new minimum program requirements (“MPRs”) present some novel legal issues for project teams- and their attorneys- to consider in connection with drafting construction agreements or leasing documents in connection with LEED v3 projects.
I have often used Washington, D.C.’s 2006 Green Building Act as a paradigm for green building legislation that is enacted quickly, fails to define key terms, or fails to address other important legal ramifications that were not contemplated by the drafters. A little over a year ago over at gbNYC, we linked to a letter that Mark McCallum, general counsel for the National Association of Surety Bond Producers, had written to the D.C. City Council expressing his concerns over certain provisions of the Act. I had been wondering where the NASB’s efforts stood because certain provisions of the Act are scheduled to take effect beginning in January. Accordingly, I was interested to recently see an article in the Washington Business Journal noting that the D.C. Department of the Environment has created a working group in cooperation with the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs to address Mr. McCallum’s concerns.
Both Marsh- in its recent report reviewing the current state of the insurance marketplace with respect to green construction issues – and representatives of the Fireman’s Fund at Greenbuild have indicated that we will likely see a new insurance product on the market sometime in 2009 for professionals participating on green building projects. The product would likely be crafted as an endorsement to an existing professional liability policy and cover design professionals or other consultants against the possibility that, by signing credit submittal templates or other documentation in connection with a green rating system, they will trigger the standard exclusion to their professional liability policy that excludes coverage for claims arising out of an express warranty or guarantee. This is a critical issue for professionals and suggests the type of heightened vigilance with which green construction contracts must be vetted.
Green roofs may be pretty but they are a plaintiff construction lawyer’s dream come true. Many of them leak or contribute to indoor air quality issues and the growth of mold. Commercial insurers- including Zurich- are taking note, and advising their insureds to make sure that their green roofs are being properly maintained and were installed as required in the first place. Over at gbNYC, we pointed out an article in Property Week magazine that quoted a Zurich consultant noting these concerns. Part of the solution, as always, is to consider a comprehensive risk management program in advance of a green project designed to mitigate non-traditional sources of risk unanticipated by the project team.
