Expert Q&As

We caught up with Susan Kaplan to discuss her role as Director of Sustainability and Specifications for HLW, as well as her work with CSI and the USGBC.

Tell us a little bit about what you do.
I am the Director of Sustainability and Specifications for HLW. One of the reason that a specifier is often in that position, is because we are the people who specify and write down the materials and know how to document projects. I also belong to CSI, which is the Construction Specifications Institute. I'm on that board too, and part of my job in New York City is to be the liaison between the New York board of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and CSI. They have a national relationship, so I sort of mimic that in New York City. One of the things that I do for CSI, is to serve on the Green Format Committee.

Green Format is basically a questionnaire on steroids about green materials. That's going to be online and uploaded, and then it's all going to be presented, I believe, at the CSI convention in June and then at Green Build in November. I think it's about to go into beta testing now. I'm on that committee, and that has to do with verifying the whole issue of how to control the green requirements of a product. So, what does that really mean? How do we deal with greenwash?

Could you give us an example?
Sure. There's a whole series of questions that we ask manufacturers: Are they certified by any overall organization that certifies green? What are their products made out of? Do their products contain VOCs?

Is CSI trying to create a standard for green building materials?
Well, it's not a standard. It's actually a data base. We ask the manufacturers all of these questions. Then, the architect or the builder can search through the data base, find the information they're looking for, and make their own decisions.

Can you speak more about your work with HLW?
In terms of the office, I'm working on LEED projects. There has been a LEED consultant on every project we've had, so I have a lot of interaction with them. They tell me what they think the project needs, and I help them to incorporate it into the project documents.

HLW also has a sustainability group which has certain initiatives--such as the greening of HLW itself--and we have LEED study groups. We now have three study groups; LEED NC for architects, LEED NC for engineers, and LEED CI for interior designers. We also do something else called Green Spot. Every other Thursday afternoon, we do some kind of educational program for half an hour, and we invite people to get credit for it.

So, we have the initiatives, the study groups, the greening of HLW, and then the educational aspect of that. We're building a repertoire of projects. Some of are projects aren't LEED, but they are green. We have some very prestigious clients that don't want to go to the USGBC and go through the whole process, so we will follow LEED or add to LEED in order to do things for them.

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