The World Trade Center in Mexico City set some aggressively green goals from the beginning of its renovation discussions, especially for energy use and sustainable purchasing, hoping to achieve the impressive green certification of LEED Gold. Alignment and communication practices that the project team borrowed from integrated design and delivery helped the team reach those goals, according to Alejandra Cabrera, the director of Sustentabilidad para México A.C. (Sume), which assumed the role of project manager. In fact the project achieved certification in a matter of 18 months.

It was Cabrera’s first time working on a project aiming to achieve LEED certification, and a project kick-off meeting, in which the whole team “set goals and duties” and made sure everyone knew their specific responsibilities, was invaluable. The entire team agreed to rules for going forward; every member was included in all communications, mail, and appointments having to do with the project, and a weekly check-in meeting was scheduled for “talking about the advances of the project, reporting on achievements, and giving the LEED AP the necessary project documentation.” The team made sure to include the maintenance manager in the kick-off meeting discussion, and even though it was difficult to convince him to participate at first, Cabrera reports it was “worth every inch of stress.” These steps might sound elementary but Cabrera argues that developing and forming an efficient team is essential to staying aligned and integrated throughout the whole process, instead of starting off strong and then fading or breaking apart as the project goes along.

Because the project team was agile and responsive to suggestions of each member, it was able to come up with some creative solutions to help update parts of the building that had been constructed 20 years ago. The team chose to waterproof the roof with a reflective, biodegradable membrane and, with input from Philips and Osram, procured lowmercury lamps. Without the efficiency achieved through integrated design and delivery principles, some of these green features likely would have been cut to keep costs down.