Harvard Law Releases Green Building White Paper

Harvard Law School’s Environmental Law & Policy Clinic has released a new white paper entitled The Green Building Revolution: Addressing and Managing Legal Risks and Liabilities (March 10, 2009). In its own words, the paper “addresses the current movement toward green building, the increasing number of mandates requiring it, and the benefits and costs associated with building green; analyzes the legal risks and potential liabilities to those involved in green building; and concludes with practical recommendations for minimizing such risks and liabilities.”

Among the identified legal risks and liabilities are:

For owners: failure to achieve desired building certification and failure to qualify for tax credits

For design professionals: an increased standard of care, liability for design effects due to failure of systems to perform over lifecycle, and insurance exclusions where specific outcomes are warranted.

For contractors: failure to deliver features as required by specifications, green-related construction defects, and warranty exclusions in insurance policies if particular sustainability outcomes are guaranteed.

For building tenants: failure to meet expectation for improved worker health, productivity, and utility costs.

The paper concludes with recommendations for managing these risks and liabilities. They include: use of careful contract language regarding expectations, specifications, and schedules; enhanced project management; special attention to insurance policy language; and aligning marketing documents with reality regarding green expectations.

See the entire white paper at: http://www.mgkflaw.com/Green%20Building%20Revolution.pdf