The role of the General Contractor in Sustainable Green Buildings: the case study of two buildings in the LEED certification in Italy

The role of the General Contractor is fundamental to obtain the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification of a sustainable green building. The single most important aspect of the construction phase of a LEED project involves preparation and strict adherence to a site-specific LEED action plan. The plan addresses the process of ensuring compliance to LEED requirements from issuance of a subcontract until occupancy of the building. The LEED rating system assigns one prerequisite and several credits to the General Contractor in some environmental categories: Sustainable Sites, Materials and Resources and Indoor Environmental Quality. In the LEED certification, the general contractor must not only use eco-friendly building materials, but he must also arrange a jobsite that minimally impacts on environmental matrices (water, air, soil and subsoil). This is possible through the development and implementation of LEED construction plans involving the installation and continuous monitoring of specific measures and sustainable construction practices. To illustrate the contributions that a qualified General Contractor can make towards the goal of LEED certification, in this paper we introduce the successful strategies employed at two projects recently designed and constructed in Italy to achieve high ratings under LEED rating systems. The paper describes the process in the basic phases and provides specific examples of jobsite strategies that were used on two different projects and with activities targeted towards particular points on the LEED matrix. In particular the first case study is a project under the LEED New Construction v.2.2 rating system and the second is a building under the LEED for Schools.