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By Terry D. Bennett, PLS, LLS, LPF, LEED AP
Conclusion
Sustainability is here to stay—backed by local, state, national, and international mandates and widespread demand by your clients, colleagues, and the general public. Smart business leaders will adapt to this change by building sustainability into their business models. Fortunately, the practice of sustainable design can be rewarding and also quite profitable. Because demand for these services is growing fast—and the number of skilled engineers is still so small—civil engineers who invest the time and effort to learn sustainable design skills can gain a decisive competitive edge in today’s global design market.
Beyond the many obvious environmental benefits, civil engineers should adopt sustainable design practices because they :
• Can help your clients reduce material, water, open land needs and energy costs
• Make it easier than ever before to limit waste, minimize energy usage, and reduce your overall carbon and water footprints
• Limit potential liability
• Help you meet regulatory and certification requirements
• Drive growth and help you attract new clients and employees
The best way for civil engineers to incorporate sustainable design principles into their practices is to adopt a sustainable design methodology and associated BIM centric workflow. In the “Innovators Dilemma” by Clayton Christensen, he makes one very important point that has bearing on process of BIM. He said, “When the best firms succeeded, they did so because they listened responsively to their customers and invested aggressively in the technology, products, and capabilities that satisfied their customers' next-generation needs.” This is critical for those that are considering the move from traditional engineering services to BIM and sustainable design approaches. You are preparing for the market that is coming, quickly albeit, but one that is on the near horizon.
The increasing importance of environmental issues to civil engineers poses risks and also offers tremendous opportunity—an opportunity shared by other AEC professionals. Going forward all companies will be graded on the triple bottom line—not just on the projects they complete, but also on their company’s “green” value systems and how well they live up to them in their daily operations. This triple bottom line of societal, economic, and environmental impact as shown earlier in Figure 1, will guide civil engineering businesses and provide the construct of how they do business and more importantly how they are perceived by their customers, general public and peers as a business.
Want to learn more? Visit http://usa.autodesk.com/company/sustainable-design for more information.
 Image courtesy of Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA). Figure 4: A green roof on a park building in Coralville, Iowa. The same approach can be used for retaining walls on highways or site developments, and many other improvements.
About the Author
Terry D. Bennett, PLS, LLS, LPF, LEED AP, is the senior industry manager for civil engineering and construction at Autodesk, responsible worldwide for the company’s industry strategy and relations in the areas of land/environmental planning, land surveying, civil engineering and construction. He holds multistate registration in both land surveying and natural resource forest management, and is a LEED-accredited professional. Bennett has also been a practicing professional consultant for the last 26 years.
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