By TOMMY LINSTROTH, Green Badger
The built environment is getting ready to expand significantly as new housing, commercial development, and public infrastructure projects strive to meet soaring demand.
According to one analysis, the next two decades will see 2.6 trillion square feet of new floor area come online, the functional equivalent of adding New York City to the map every month for 40 years. As the analysis notes, “three-quarters of the infrastructure that will exist in 2050 has yet to be built.”
In the U.S., this new construction will be influenced by national, state, and local sustainability mandates and regulations, posing both a challenge and an opportunity for the engineers, developers, and builders tasked with balancing compliance, innovation, and growing demand for sustainability.
This is first a logistical challenge. After all, innovating established processes, materials, and workflows always comes with inherent risks and uncertainties. It also presents novel reporting problems.
As a 2024 Ernst and Young report on the engineering and construction sector notes, “New regulatory requirements will require the industry to implement new processes to support disclosure of environmental data.”
In response, engineers and construction entities must reimagine compliance as an automated process that maximizes impact, minimizes cost, and enhances stakeholder collaboration.
Here are three best practices for automating the key sustainability and compliance mandates facing the industry.
#1 Develop a Culture of Innovation
Automation necessarily means technology adoption and process improvement.
While the engineers and their building partners have consistently embraced cutting-edge innovations such as building information modeling (BIM), drones for site surveys, and prefabrication techniques, it’s necessary to cultivate a culture of innovation around products, services, and technologies that can support sustainability outcomes.
This culture of innovation will encourage all stakeholders – from engineers and designers to contractors and subcontractors – to continually pursue new ideas, processes, and technologies that further ESG outcomes. This requires:
- Open-minded leadership: Innovative leaders support exploration, new ideas, and new approaches;
- Inter and cross-team collaboration: Sustainable construction is an all-in endeavor, requiring collaboration within teams and across networks, especially when contractors and subcontractors are involved;
- Learning mindset: Innovative cultures encourage employees to develop new skills, embrace new approaches, and learn new capacities.
For example, heating and cooling systems account for 20% of the energy used in U.S. buildings, making HVAC system upgrades critical to making buildings more sustainable. Moving away from fossil fuel-based solutions and towards sustainability-oriented solutions, like smart building management systems, geothermal heating and cooling, and advanced HVAC systems, requires a culture of innovation among engineers and their building partners.
To make this more practical, set SMART goals for automation implementation.
SMART goals are:
- Specific — outline what needs to be accomplished and the steps to make it happen;
- Measurable — goals need to be quantified to track progress;
- Achievable — goals shouldn’t be too easy but also shouldn’t be too difficult to accomplish. Set a goal that is challenging yet realistic;
- Relevant — goals should be aligned with the mission and vision of your organization and ESG;
- Time-Bound — there should be a deadline to complete the goal.
This ensures that progress is made and that automation solutions achieve their intended outcomes.
#2 Establish a Company-Wide Framework For Tech Adoption
According to other industry data, the average company with up to 1,000 employees uses 300-400 apps and spends up to $15 million on SaaS applications annually.
Engineering and construction companies can’t afford this haphazard approach to tech adoption and automation. Instead, they must establish a company-wide technology adoption and implementation framework.
This framework should include:
● Needs Assessment: identify the areas within the company that would benefit most from technological innovation.
● Standardized Evaluation Processes: Establish criteria to assess different tools or systems' ROI, scalability, and potential benefits.
● Pilot and Scale: Run small-scale pilot projects to test new technologies. Collect feedback from project teams, measure outcomes, and determine if the technology should be scaled across the organization.
A framework for tech and automation adoption will help engineers and construction entities avoid software creep or misguided investments, ensuring that every new solution makes a meaningful contribution to a specific problem.
#3 Promote an Education-Focused Growth Mindset
Sustainability is a journey, not a destination.
Along the way, engineers, construction companies, and other community stakeholders can achieve better outcomes by fostering an education-focused growth mindset.
Engineering programs are already working diligently to cultivate this trait in the next generation of engineers, understanding that students with fixed mindsets are “more likely to disengage when facing new challenges.”
For engineers already in the workforce and other construction stakeholders, promoting an education-focused growth mindset can lead to continuous improvement, innovation, and adaptability, helping them stay ahead of emerging sustainability standards and technologies.
This requires:
- Ongoing Training Programs: Implement education initiatives that keep employees informed about evolving sustainability practices and technologies. This can include attending workshops, obtaining certifications, and enrolling in sustainability-focused courses;
- Community and Stakeholder Engagement: Engage with the local community, clients, and industry stakeholders to ensure sustainable goals align with broader community needs;
- Encourage Knowledge Sharing: Create opportunities for employees and partners to share lessons learned from sustainability projects.
Innovation and automation won’t happen by accident. They require specific, strategic investments in continuing education to ensure that all stakeholders are up-to-date on the latest solutions to the biggest challenges facing construction companies and the communities they serve.
Sustainable Construction Takes Everyone
The built environment is ready to expand, and this growth must be more sustainable. Climate change realities require it, national and local regulators demand it, and communities deserve it.
To achieve an environmentally sustainable built environment, engineers and construction entities will need to foster a culture of innovation, implement a strategic framework for technology adoption, and promote continuous learning within their teams.
This holistic approach makes sustainable construction and reporting efficient, cost-effective, and aligned with the documentation and operational outcomes we need right now.
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The author is the Founder and CEO of Green Badger, a leading SaaS provider simplifying sustainability and ESG in the built industry. Green Badger is accelerating environmentally responsible construction worldwide by equipping the built industry with affordable technology and the knowledge to automate and easily report LEED compliance and ESG metrics.For more, visit www.getgreenbadger.com.