Building a Sustainable Future: How Collaborative Delivery Can Help Achieve Sustainability Goals

ISI Guest Authors: Ben Miller – Ferguson Waterworks and Barb Martin – WCDA

The construction industry faces a significant challenge: achieving ambitious sustainability goals while delivering projects on time and within budget. Traditional, siloed project delivery methods often struggle to address these goals effectively due to differing priorities and goals. Here’s where collaborative delivery shines. By fostering open communication and shared objectives among all stakeholders early in the project timeline, collaborative delivery provides a pipeline for sustainable construction methodologies.

Breaking Down Silos: The Power of Collaboration
Traditional delivery methods often pit project participants against each other. This creates a project culture where sustainability considerations can be sidelined, and paperwork needs for certification/verification can get left to the last minute or missed completely. Collaborative delivery, on the other hand, brings all stakeholders—owners, designers, contractors, subcontractors, and material suppliers—together from the very beginning. The possibility for this early and ongoing collaboration allows for:

• Shared Goals: By establishing sustainability as a core objective at the outset, the team can work together to identify and prioritize sustainable solutions and maintain required documentation.
• Open Communication: Regular communication ensures everyone is aware of potential challenges and opportunities related to sustainability.
• Early Innovation:  Collaborative brainstorming fosters creative solutions for maximizing resource efficiency, minimizing environmental impact, and optimizing building and treatment performance throughout its life cycle. Changes can be made when the implementation costs are at their lowest. 

Collaborative Delivery Methods

Collaborative delivery is a project execution approach that emphasizes early and ongoing partnership between utility owners, designers, and contractors to achieve a project’s goals. Unlike traditional delivery methods, such as design-bid-build, collaborative delivery methods integrate key stakeholders from the outset – often during the planning and preconstruction phases. This approach fosters transparent communication, joint decision-making, and alignment around budget, schedule, and performance metrics. Common collaborative delivery methods include:

• Construction manager at-risk (CMAR) – Owner holds separate contracts with the designer and the CMAR. The CMAR provides preconstruction input on cost and constructability and delivers the project for a guaranteed maximum price (GMP). It promotes collaboration but maintains the owner’s direct contractual relationship with the designer.

• Design-build (DB) – A refinement of the traditional “turnkey” model, where the owner has a single contract with a design-build entity for both design and construction. It exists in two primary forms:
▸ Fixed-price design-build (FPDB) – The design-builder delivers the project based on a well-defined scope for a lump-sum price.
▸ Progressive design-build (PDB) – The owner selects a design-builder on qualifications and works collaboratively to progressively define the scope and develop a price. This model offers the owner significant control over the design process and full cost transparency, representing a true best-value solution.

• Design-build operate (DBO) and Public-Private-Partnerships (P3) – Integrate long-term operations and often financing into the delivery contract, aligning the project team around life-cycle performance and creating a long-term partnership.

Detailed information about these delivery methods is available through a variety of resource from the Water Collaborative Delivery Association (WCDA), Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA), and other industry organizations. 

Envision and Collaborative Delivery
Envision is a framework designed to encourage sustainable infrastructure projects. Its foundation is a rating system based on 64 credits across five categories: quality of life (QL), leadership (LD), resource allocation (RA), natural world (NW), and climate and resilience (CR). This system helps stakeholders like planners, designers, builders, and operators make infrastructure projects more sustainable, equitable, and able to withstand environmental challenges. By considering factors like well-being, materials, and emissions, Envision promotes a holistic approach to sustainable construction and the triple bottom line—social responsibility, environmental stewardship, and economic viability. With its focus on infrastructure and non-occupied civil works—rather than building-focused systems such as LEED—Envision is becoming commonplace in the water and wastewater construction industry, with more than 180 water-related projects in the verification program (Registered, under review & complete).

With 64 potential credits to pursue for a project, and many requiring contractor, subcontractor, and supplier involvement, it can be quite challenging for a design-bid-build project to determine the appropriate credits to target, plan appropriately during preconstruction, and manage the necessary paperwork to demonstrate compliance. As seen in this blog post, the nature of collaborative delivery streamlines and simplifies these processes, helping to achieve the project’s sustainability goals. With respect to the Envision framework specifically, collaborative delivery makes sense:

• Shared Goals: Envision emphasizes collaboration and achieving common goals for sustainability. This makes integrating the Envision Framework more natural.
• Early Integration: Collaborative delivery allows for earlier integration of sustainability goals during the design phase. Envision can be more effectively woven into the project from the beginning.
• Transparency and Communication: Envision requires a high level of transparency and communication between stakeholders. This is already a core principle in collaborative delivery, where open communication helps identify and address sustainability concerns early on.
• Risk Mitigation: Collaborative delivery encourages shared risk and reward. Envision’s focus on resource use and efficiency aligns well with cost-saving strategies that collaborative projects often seek.
• Innovation: Collaborative delivery fosters an environment for innovation. Envision’s point system rewards innovative approaches to sustainability. This shared environment encourages stakeholders to find creative ways to achieve sustainability goals within the project.

For many projects, collaborative delivery is an effective way to enhance Envision’s benefits and streamline its implementation.

Collaborative Strategies for Sustainability
Collaborative delivery empowers project teams to implement a range of sustainability practices, including the following. In each of the descriptions below, the sustainability strategies note the Envision credit to which it most strongly correlates, to illustrate how collaborative approaches may support a project’s, and a community’s, sustainability goals.

• Integrated Design (LD1.2 – Foster Collaboration & Teamwork): All stakeholders work together to optimize building form, treatment processes, material selection, and community impacts for energy efficiency, water conservation, and occupant and community well-being.
• Life Cycle Assessment (LD3.3 – Conduct a Life-Cycle Economic Evaluation): Collaborative teams can consider the environmental impact of materials and equipment throughout their entire life cycle, from extraction through operation and eventual disposal, encouraging the use of recycled content, sustainable materials, and low-energy solutions.
• Waste Reduction (RA1.4 – Reduce Construction Waste): Early planning allows for optimized material ordering, thus reducing waste on-site. Collaborative strategies can also explore prefabrication and modular construction methods, which inherently generate less waste.
• Sustainable Materials (RA1.2 – Use Recycled Materials): Collaboratively exploring alternative materials with lower environmental impact, such as recycled steel, sustainably harvested wood, and bio-based materials, becomes a shared focus.
• Energy Efficiency (RA2.1 – Reduce Operational Energy Consumption): Collaborative efforts can identify building systems and treatment equipment that minimize energy consumption and explore renewable energy options like solar panels.
• Water Conservation (RA3.2 – Reduce Operational Water Consumption): Designing water- and process-water-efficient treatment plants, incorporating rainwater harvesting systems, and using drought-resistant landscaping are all achievable through collaboration.
• Site Management (QL1.6 – Minimize Construction Impacts): A focus on sustainable site practices reduces environmental impact during construction. This can involve minimizing soil disturbance, implementing dust-control measures, off-site prefabrication, and exploring ways to reuse or recycle construction materials.

 Sustainable Strategies for Collaboration
Sustainable water and wastewater construction not only benefits the environment, but also offers several practical advantages for a collaborative delivery project:

• Cost Savings: Early identification of potential sustainability measures can lead to proper budgeting and cost savings in construction and materials over late implementation and changes to reach sustainability goals. Additionally, improved energy efficiency can significantly reduce operational costs over the facility’s lifespan.
• Schedule Savings: By focusing on sustainability early with all stakeholders, the team can accurately plan for lead times and any additional time needed for sustainable choices. Sustainability certification/verification paperwork can be maintained during construction to avoid closeout delays at the end of the project.
• Reduced Risk: Shared goals and open communication around potential sustainability challenges allow for proactive risk mitigation and smoother project execution.
• Improved Client Satisfaction: By delivering a project that meets sustainability objectives and owner goals, collaborative delivery fosters a sense of shared achievement and client satisfaction.
• Leading Through Innovation: The culture of innovation and attention to non-cost project factors support sustainability as part of the best-value equation.

Moving Forward: Collaborative Delivery for a Sustainable Future
The construction industry has a significant role to play in achieving global sustainability goals. Collaborative delivery provides a powerful framework for achieving these goals while delivering high-quality, cost-effective projects. By embracing this approach, the water and wastewater industry can build a more sustainable future, one collaborative project at a time.

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About the authors:
Ben Miller, PE, DBIA, ENV-SP is a Director of Business Development for Ferguson Waterworks, bringing over 17 years of experience in collaborative delivery for water and wastewater infrastructure. He has led more than $600 million in CMAR and Design Build projects—including work on the first Envision Platinum project in the DC Metro region—helping public agencies navigate risk, cost, and long term operational value. Ben also serves on the Board of Directors for the Water Collaborative Delivery Association, where he chairs the Best Practices Committee.

Barbara Martin is Executive Director of the Water Collaborative Delivery Association and has over 25 years of water sector experience. She previously served as Director of Engineering and Technical Services at the American Water Works Association, where she led a team of staff and thousands of volunteers in the development of resources and programs to support the water community.  Through her career she has focused on creating strategic partnerships to advance the vision of a sustainable and resilient future for the sector.

About the Water Collaborative Delivery Association:
WCDA is the leading organization dedicated to advancing collaborative delivery methods in the water sector, including various forms of design build as well as construction management at risk (CMAR).  The WCDA’s mission is to empower the water sector with the knowledge, ability, and tools for successful collaborative delivery, with the vision of delivering better projects together to achieve a more sustainable future. WCDA’s education, research, and advocacy programs help utilities provide high quality, cost effective, and resilient water infrastructure and deliver better projects, together.