Best Practices
Value Engineering and Sustainable Design: The Commonality of Quality

by Gregory S. Knoop, AIA

Summary: Throughout the past few decades, there has been a highly unproductive struggle between forces that have mistakenly set themselves at odds in the world of design and construction of high-performance buildings. Value engineering (VE) and environmental design often have crossed swords in design—especially environmentally sustainable design. Proponents of each concentration were ready to cut and slash at the others’ efforts. It is now time to put down the swords and recognize common goals.

Value engineering needs to focus more on sustainability. Sustainability needs to rise above the practice of checklists and, through the auditing of value engineering, find its much broader potentials.

What is the common thread? Quality. Quality is at the core of a high-performance building. Quality is the core goal in the search for value. Quality is the goal we seek in creating a better, more livable planet.

Quality is the core goal in the search for value

What exactly is value engineering? According to SAVE International (formerly the Society of American Value Engineers), the basic goal of VE is to get better value for a project by decreasing costs, increasing profitability, improving quality, saving time, and using resources more effectively. For architects and owners who assumed that VE was a cheapening of the project, these goals should be a great relief. If you are being sold project cheapening as a value engineering process, you’ve been mislead. VE is the search for quality, not cheapening.

The process commonly used for VE has many variations and can range in magnitude and scope, but usually involves:

• Information gathering
• Analysis
• Creative brainstorming
• Evaluation
• Recommendation
• Implementation.

VE can be a powerful tool to bring about sustainability

Goals of VE
Decreasing costs. When balancing initial and lifecycle costs, recognize the currencies other than money—efficient use and recycling of resources such as energy, water, and carbon are real commodities.
Increasing profits. We want occupants to be efficient, faster, attendant, accurate, and contributing to the bottom line. We want buildings that create an environment to facilitate these goals. An intelligent value engineering process can reach deep into the common quality goals.
Improving quality. This is the core issue.
Saving time. Timeliness and timelessness can be the true test for the quality of a building and its design. Longevity can be a valuable commodity.
Using resources more effectively.
Solving problems. As Benson Kwong, PE, with Project Management Services Incorporated says, “As sustainability becomes a common goal in construction . . . VE can be a powerful tool to bring about sustainability . . . The value engineer simply applies the value methodology to optimize the value as defined by the users.”

Cost and benefit
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines lifecycle cost as “the total discounted dollar cost of owning, operating, maintaining, and disposing of a building or a building system” during a measurable period. Many environmental design items—although adding some level of cost premium to a project—will show a lifecycle monetary savings (although the payout period may bring this into question). If we begin to measure other commodities, we may see additional payoffs as being more immediate. Can we measure human performance as a commodity? Can we measure biodiversity as a commodity? Can we measure air quality as a commodity? Can we measure healthy environments as a commodity? If we make the necessary investments in constructing and deconstructing our buildings in a quality green manner, we may see the payoffs in many shades of green.

If we begin to measure other commodities, we may see additional payoffs as being more immediate

We see affirmation in the construction practices promoted by organizations such as Kaiser Permanente, which sees the value of promoting green building practices and of following the Green Guide for Health Care as paying off in energy cost, material consumption, healthier patient environments, lower legal and financial risk, and higher staff performance. The organization is using its purchasing power to promote sustainable design and construction that truly influences the marketplace.

The federal government has similarly adopted sustainability as part of the standard concern for constructing its facilities. Most architecture and engineering contracts advertised for the General Services Administration in recent years have required team members to be USGBC® LEED®-accredited personnel. VE reviews of projects for the U.S. Department of State, the Army Corps of Engineers, and other agencies include reviews of LEED checklists as a routine part of the process.

Value engineers need no longer hide in the shadows. Now, more than ever, we need them to step forward and take part in upholding the principles of quality and value in construction by promoting and lending further expertise to environmental sustainable design and construction. Now is the time to join efforts to promote the commonality of quality.