Mar 13, 2013
S+G Becomes Charter Member of the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure
Smith Gardner, Inc. (S+G) is pleased to announce it has become a charter member of the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI), whose goal it is to change the way infrastructure is conceived of, designed, constructed and operated to better meet the challenges of our resource-constrained world. Taking a more visible stance regarding sustainability is a natural step for the firm, which has for the past decade been instrumental in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by providing consulting services for numerous landfill-gas-to-energy and landfill gas collection projects throughout the southeastern United States. Charter membership in ISI is a milestone indicating the completion of many behind the scenes moves to equip the firm to incorporate sustainability principles into its core services and to add new sustainability-driven services, such as expanded composting consulting services and enabling owners to achieve project recognition through the Envision rating system, as explained later in this article.
Sustainability is not a separate service line for S+G, it is the pathway to providing better value to our clients through expanding the conceptual space within which we provide our core services. We will be able to achieve greater value over the life of a project or facility by applying longer planning horizons and multi-disciplinary approaches. Our clients may not even realize that innovative solutions to their problems have grown out of the multidisciplinary studies our professionals engage in.
The firm’s involvement with ISI is spearheaded by Thomas Maier, who has earned the Envision™ sustainability professional (ENV SP) credential recognizing his demonstrated ability to apply sustainability principles to infrastructure projects, and to use the recently debuted Envision™ sustainable infrastructure rating system. Mr. Maier was also a member of the first graduating class of ISI Verifiers who are qualified to rate projects on the basis of documentation submitted by the design team. The Envision™ rating system raises the bar on infrastructure performance by recognizing efforts that restore ecosystems as well as evaluating infrastructure throughout its full lifecycle from planning through decommissioning. Through his work with the Economics Committee of ISI, Mr. Maier is working with economists and engineers to develop an enhancement to the Envision™ rating system that enables the monetary equivalent of environmental and cultural benefits to be rationally quantified, thus providing an economic driver for projects to achieve higher levels of sustainable performance. Mr. Maier has also earned the designation of LEED AP BD+C from the Green Building Certification Institute, recognizing his proficiency in applying the LEED rating system to building design and construction.
Jorge Montezuma is leading the firm’s expanding composting services line, which includes consulting and design services for food waste collection and composting, vermicomposting, and agricultural byproduct composting. Mr. Montezuma has recently been elected the Secretary of the North Carolina Composting Council.
Smith Gardner, Inc. is pleased to offer sustainability-driven services to our current and future clients. Please contact Joan Smyth, P.G. or any of our other professionals to discuss how we can provide solutions for your waste management needs.
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