maybe you envision immense concrete blocks obscuring the skyline, or smoke stacks pumping out pollution or a quiet patch of land made barren in preparation for the next biggest development seen this side of the mississippi. 

if you recall early mornings waking up to the sounds of jackhammers, or detour signs lengthening your route to work, it certainly doesn’t improve your quality of life. this is something today’s sustainable development goals strive to do.

these mental manifestations of the construction industry aren’t entirely representative of reality, however, they can’t be written off as generalizations either. there are facts. the production of concrete, an extremely favorable building material, especially in dc, has contributed up to 5% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions in previous years. the u.s. green building council (usgbc) has reported that buildings account for more than 40% of the u.s.’s energy consumption.

as i have gone through three years of education and summer internships to prepare me for a post-graduate career in construction engineering i’ve had to consider these things and weigh them against my goals. thankfully, the industry is more than just those statistics; it is adapting to the standards we – as wiser inhabitants of earth – are setting. one of the biggest ways the construction industry is moving forward, with me happily following along, is with leed, or leadership in environmental and energy design.

first introduced in 1998 by the usgbc, leed started as a rating system with five simple categories to help promote conservation. it has progressed, offering the leed green associate credential (people are leed accredited, buildings are leed certified) to professionals who work in related industries. it has now even fostered its own sort of brand; often leed-certified buildings can be recognized by their use of glass, open spaces, inventive design, and natural elements. this has certainly helped improve the public conception of construction.

through my internship at clark construction this summer i’ve spent some time learning more about how leed works in the favor of construction. though these buildings do save money and energy during their lifespan and are highly photogenic, there’s a larger element. a lot of the credits come into play during construction and are earned by the general contractor. there are goals for reducing light pollution on a site, goals for reducing the amount of heat reflected, goals for picking sites that are easily accessible by public transportation. almost every aspect of the process, from selecting where your lumber comes from to picking the paint on your roof, can create a positive effect.

though i’m learning more about smart ways to conserve and sustainable construction practices at clark, i still have some concerns about the future of keeping engineering green. firstly, the buildings that tend to be leed certified are large, and as i like to think, “glamorous.” projects like museums and skyscrapers, and massive residential buildings. sustainability doesn’t seem as accessible for the less attractive and lower budget projects.

if small town needs to create more places for its growing population to live, or if a suburb badly needs to update their water treatment plant, leed doesn’t feel like the best fit. however there are other green rating systems, like envision, which focuses on civil infrastructure. they adopt the same objectives and adjust the criteria for a better fit. usgbc also offers other higher-level accreditations past green associate which include focuses on neighborhood development and homes. this issue is being addressed and i hope it becomes more and more standard for business to adopt these common goals.

what i don’t hope, is that green building becomes an excuse to build anything. if a parcel of land is available on the edge of a city, it might not necessarily need to be developed into the newest high rise apartment building. even if it sources its lumber from responsible forests within a 50 mile radius and will foster more practice of mixed land use, what if the property disrupts a struggling native plant? or what if its attempt at development is really just enabling the gentrification of that neighborhood? or what if we just don’t need it? construction is a valuable industry because it services the needs and interests of the public. but we need to ensure scaling down its existing impact doesn’t allow new forms of excess.

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more information

– for an infographic on the future of concrete check out: https://ensia.com/infographics/the-future-of-low-carbon-cement/

– for more information on green building check out: https://www.usgbc.org/articles/green-building-facts

– for some stunning examples of finished sustainable construction projects check out: https://www.clarkconstruction.com/our-work/expertise/sustainability

however, leed certified buildings are just structures. what does the average george washington student’s interaction with sustainability look like?

many students interact with sustainability features daily without even knowing it. for example, a building can earn leed points by including certain green features. let’s consider the milken institute school of public health. this building is the only leed platinum certified building on gw’s campus and you may find many of its features interesting.

according to the milken institute’s self-guided tour, milken has some observable features that make it a green building. features like the fact that it is walking distance from the metro, has a bicycle rental rack right outside the building, and has a green roof. however, there are features that are not as clear to spot. for example, walking in the front door, you will not see an elevator as you would in a typical building. the elevators are intentionally hidden behind the reception desk to increase the probability of using the stairs. furthermore, there is an intentional 5 second delay when calling an elevator. this delay was inserted in order to push more people to use the stairs. another interesting fact is that most of the materials used in the building are from the building that existed prior to milken. that reduces solid wastes from being dumped in landfills. in addition, to encourage people to use public transportation, milken has no parking garage and the parking spaces outside the building are limited.

another feature of the building is the existence and placement of recycling bins right next to every trash can. this serves as a visual reminder for people to recycle their used goods. the building is also equipped with light sensors in every room. these turn on light whenever motion is detected and they also send a signal to security rooms with the room number whose light is on. this is useful to both make sure the lights are not on when there is no one in the room and for increased security in case there is a break in. finally, every floor is equipped with lasers that shoot beams into reflectors. the way these operate is the laser shoots a beam into the reflector in a way that creates a web of laser beams on each floor. these lasers detect smoke and record the time of detection to help locate the floor where the smoke is coming from. this significantly helps the fire fighters, in the case of fire, to quickly locate the source, which consequently saves lives and building materials.

overall, students should still remain interested and alert to the actions they can personally take to do their part in helping society become continuously more efficient. however, hopefully you realize that everyday you are interacting with features that help buildings to be more sustainable. so, even passively, you are participating in the effort to be more eco-friendly.

to address this power problem, my teammates and i decided to make electric usage mitigation the topic for our systems engineering senior design project. this project is limited to studying the electric consumption behavior for two academic buildings and two residential buildings on the george washington university foggy bottom campus.

to summarize our methodology, we compared one leed building as a baseline to another non-leed certified building. by doing this baseline comparison, this will give us an idea on how non-leed buildings could be optimized to minimize electric consumption. surprisingly, our results show that for south hall, which is a leed certified residential hall, draws higher electricity compared to thurston hall, located on the same campus. this is an indicator that the leed certification might be missing behavioral consumption patterns that might be a reason for high electric consumption.

however, during our research, we found that some of the data we needed weren’t accessible or available. in light of this discovery, we also highly encourage energy and electric utility companies to make their data accessible, and perhaps create incentives for collecting data so future research on electric mitigation can be improved.

we are currently working on implementing mitigation techniques to reduce the electric consumption discovered as a result of our study, and still working on analyzing data for two of the academic buildings. so far, our research shows that phantom power, which is electricity consumed by unused appliances, draws a large amount of electricity. one simple method to significantly reduce — or eliminate entirely — phantom power is to install smart power strips in each room of the residential hall.

another important finding of our study? using technologically advanced appliances does not mean we need to increase our consumption pattern. this causes a higher amount of electricity to be consumed — even if the appliance is much more energy efficient than the old appliance. 

civil engineering has been practiced as early as the ancient roman times, and has been a relatively static field, in regards to its materials and methodology. now with the new discoveries concerning climate change and global health, policies put forth by entities such as the u.s. green building council have been a catalyst for change in the industry.

as a construction management intern for clark construction, i was able to have a hands-on understanding of the roles of an engineer on a structural project. on a field site, there are a dozen moving parts which are constantly working to build and bring to life the work of the designs.

my assignment was the closeout phase of the 7th and 8th floors of gwu science and engineering hall. the clark office was set up on the penthouse level, giving me the unique chance to work both in the office and “in the field.”

in the office, i was able to communicate with the project managers and the architect for proper documentation of submittals, requests-for-information (rfis), and leed documentation. since the building was designed as a leed gold structure, i was given the task of ensuring the project’s construction phase had met the leed requirements. this entailed contacting subcontractors for exact information of the source and contents of their materials, which included having non-voc paints, fsc wood products, and fluorescent bulbs.

since this was a summer internship and the project was nearing substantial completion, time was of the essence. every day, sometimes even twice a day, i would call each of the subcontractors in order to get the proper documents. as i waited for this information, i would have to photograph the job site every other day to ensure that the project was within the leed guidelines of source control and interior standards. pictures of the safety net and of the construction crew working in a secluded area were recorded. this aspect was crucial since the project was a completion of the top two floors, therefore little evidence of construction was to be seen from the lower floors.

during the course of the data collection, i did receive some advice from my supervisors and occasional assistance from the clark leed fellow. although each of the members of my team had specific priorities to complete. i came to learn that typically, the leed documentation was sent weeks after the clark construction team would leave the project site. it left me with the impression that the leed certification was not a pressing matter. the leed aspects of the project (the chilled beams, the green roof, and interior air quality control) were outlined years before excavation. while the last stages of accreditation could be finalized after the project site was completed, which was an acceptable practice for contractors.

after four weeks of collecting the data in various different forms and after meetings with a clark leed fellow, it was ready to be uploaded to the usgbc website. this process should have been just several clicks of the mouse and keyboard, however since the website was down, i had to upload each item individually. it was painstakingly long, although i was able to finish the leed certification for the project before i left for the end of the summer.

the construction industry is not the most glamorous and not the most thrilling. however, structures of all kinds – bridges, skyscrapers, and dams – are ubiquitous and unavoidable. as a first-hand witness to the leed process, i have endured the long processes of waiting, photo-taking, and paperwork. it made me feel more like a secretary than an engineer, more of a scorekeeper than a construction management intern.

despite all of that, my internship gave me a glimpse of the growing green standards in the construction industry. these structures will be around for at least the next 50 years. i am pleased to have had the opportunity to observe sustainability at its core, which is to develop and build an entity which meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations. 

american public university system uses innovative building practices to combine adaptive reuse of historic buildings and new construction built to leed gold standards. along with building practices, the university has a comprehensive sustainability program that includes telecommuting for employees and electronics recycling with an eye toward charitable giving and supporting the local community. in addition, the university uses solar energy when possible to power its newer buildings.

see related: solar decathlon 2011 trend: green roofs

we have completed the net zero energy rehab of our 111-year-old historic folk-victorian home in ann arbor, mi. a net-zero energy home (also called zero energy home) is a home that produces as much or more energy than the occupants consume. this is accomplished by first reducing energy demand, typically by 60% – 70%, then meeting that demand by adding on-site renewable energy. we were inspired by the challenge of the late ray anderson, the founder of interface, inc., to create a society with zero environmental footprint.

we are now fulfilling our family’s goal to create a living building by rehabilitating a home that creates its own energy, creates zero waste and will be a restorative part of our community. in march 2011, we paid our last utility bill . . . ever. our home is believed to be the oldest home in america to achieve net zero energy. usa today honored the home as one of the “best green houses of 2010”

learn more at http://www.missionzerohouse.com

the most unique process at the plant has to do with paint. the paint process is innovative in two ways. first, vw says that it cuts carbon emissions by 20% thanks to eliminating the primer coat. second, vw uses limestone powder instead of water to collect the sludge. the paint shop alone saves vw 50,000 gallons of water per day.