Welcome to Metro’s Environmental Construction Awareness -- MECA -- Program module on Metro’s Sustainability Plan.

Metro aims to inspire, work with, and support our contractors in incorporating energy and water efficiency, renewable energy, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and climate resiliency into capital projects.

Metro welcomes innovative means and methods to infuse project design, construction, operations and maintenance with sustainability practices.

Metro’s Sustainability Plan process applies to all capital projects and is reflected in contract documents and project specifications. The Sustainability Plan provides a process for contractors to communicate their sustainability commitments and to show how these have been fulfilled. These commitments focus on project components aligned with CALGreen and other state and local ordinances, Metro’s policies, and project specifications.

The Sustainability Plan is designed to encourage project teams to think big and act innovatively about the use of our natural resources and how our projects will interact within the Los Angeles environment.

This includes planning with climate adaptation, energy and water efficiency in mind, using sustainable building materials, reducing waste and emissions, and increasing fuel efficiency.

We believe innovative solutions to pervasive environmental and community-based challenges should be recognized. The Gold Line Operations campus in the city of Monrovia is one such example. This is one of Metro’s LEED-certified gold projects, earning this recognition through water and energy conservation, waste reduction and aesthetic efforts.

The campus water management system captures 100% of rainfall. The first 112,000 gallons are captured and filtered through underground chambers, which then infiltrate into groundwater aquifers. The rest seeps through permeable areas directly into groundwater.

This project supports the 2011 Metro commitment to utilizing 33% renewable energy by 2020 by incorporating onsite generation. The campus has solar-tracking, skylights, motion-detecting lights, and 714 solar panels generating 178.5 kilowatts, averaging 22,000 kilowatt hours per month.

Another way the project was designed with the environment in mind was by using 50% recycled content in the materials used to build the Operations Campus.

This focus on conservation doesn’t mean aesthetics suffered. The campus

design features functional artworks by artist Christie Beniston, and include the California poppy and Metro’s orange bus color -- throughout the Division, reflecting place and history.

We’re proud of the Operations Campus and we know that, with your help, we can do more.

Rail lines are more than rivers of concrete and steel that cross the city. The Expo Line is the first project Metro submitted to the Envision Rating System, and it earned Platinum status. It’s no mystery as to why --

Expo committed to hiring local and disadvantaged workers, partnering with community programs, local schools, service and training centers, union halls and apprenticeship programs within a five-mile radius of project sites to build lifelong careers in the construction trade.

Water conservation efforts yielded a 27% savings by using the Santa Monica Urban Runoff Recycling Facility to recycle gray-water, installation of porous and permeable pavement, highly sensitive leak detection systems and drip irrigation. The 340,000 square-foot landscaping irrigation system uses 20–50% less water than conventional systems, but still accounts for a majority of the project’s water use.

Innovative new technologies and materials for reduced sound and vibration were developed for use along the tracks, taking care to protect worker health and safety during concept testing, construction, and maintenance operations.

Photo-sensor and LED equipment were used throughout the project to protect North American Songbirds from the negative effects of artificial lighting and to reduce energy consumption.

Innovative signage protects people moving in close proximity to the trains.

Working together, Metro projects can leverage what we’ve accomplished in the past by sharing lessons learned over years of implementing the Sustainability Plan. Metro is creating resources to help you jumpstart the process and build upon what we learned from the past.

You can download the Sustainability Plan Contractor Guidelines from this MECA website to get a jump on the key elements of the program that will be discussed here.

Metro uses the Sustainability Plan to track the incorporation of sustainable design and construction methods in Design-Build and Design-Bid-Build project delivery methods.

The Sustainability Plan process is initiated in the project design phase. The following slides outline some of the required steps of the process.

During project design, key elements of the sustainability strategy are identified by the contractor and incorporated into a Sustainability Plan, completed in collaboration with Metro’s Environmental Compliance and Sustainability Department.

One of the first steps for the contractor is the creation of a project-specific Sustainability Plan, which defines the project’s sustainability goals and details how the goals will be attained via specific project components. A Sustainability Plan is required under both Design-Build and Design-Bid-Build delivery methods. This infographic reflects the process for a Design-Build project.

The first draft of the Plan is submitted to Metro for review within 60 days of Notice to Proceed, as defined within the specifications. This is followed by a Visioning Workshop with the Metro team to clarify the Plan components and ensure that the Plan includes all requirements.

This first submittal is pivotal to the work that follows.

As part of the Sustainability Plan, contractors shall provide a Life-Cycle Cost Analysis to evaluate all aspects of the life of equipment, materials used, and durability.

This is useful for areas such as mechanical, electrical, and plumbing building systems -- to compare different systems or determine the most cost-effective piece of equipment or system. This analysis addresses an important component of sustainability for Metro.

Contractors provide monthly submittals to validate progress and adherence to the Sustainability Plan goals and commitments. Monthly Sustainability Plan submittals are due to Metro 30 days following each month’s end.

In the design phase, Metro aims to work with contractors to ensure that design elements are properly scoped, reducing project risk, and to avoid project delays, regulatory fines, and withholding of payments.

In the past, monthly submittals have caught variations in calculations and interpretation in requirements that could have been costly to remedy later.

When corrected early, the approval process moves forward smoothly, on time, and on budget. This is a key reason why Metro’s Environmental team will work with the contractor to support the development of timely monthly submittals.

Contractors are also required to provide annual updates that report on Sustainability Plan achievements both during the design and construction portion of the project timeline.

This report helps Metro highlight project achievements to the Metro Board and external stakeholders.

The Sustainability Plan process plays an important role and function for Metro.

Not only does it provide proof that Metro projects are complying with sustainable practices and regulatory requirements, but it also demonstrates how effective and reliable the contractors are in working with Metro to meet their sustainability goals and the objectives to the community in which they operate.

Thank you for watching this MECA module. Resources mentioned in this module are available for download from this site.

We also encourage you to share your feedback using the form on this site or send your thoughts to sustainability@metro.net.

Let us know that you watched and learned from this module. You might want to take a screen shot of this certification and include it in materials you share with Metro.