I'm John Torek, and I'm Danny Sullivan, and you're listening to Speaking of Design, bringing you the stories of the engineers and architects who are transforming the world one project at a time. Today, we have a different type of episode for you. We'll introduce you to some of the industry experts on Envision, the rating system for designing sustainable
infrastructure. They'll help you understand more about how the guidelines can help your clients, why a sustainability rating is about more than a pat on the back, and what the process entails so you can help your clients get their projects verified. So sustainability is one of those words that means lots of different things to lots of different people, and it means something different at the the organizational level, at a project level, at a facility level. And so finding metrics
has helped me find purpose. That's Marcela Thompson, HDR sustainability director who works with clients in the power, industrial, and waste industries. Envision, it's, I think, a natural extension of that. It's a framework that helps you look at all different aspects of sustainability and really identify the most important purpose or outcome of a project. And so through that process, you come up with great metrics that you can track and help communicate outcomes that make an impact
in our communities and for the planet. Most companies say they wanna be sustainable. So then the challenge is defining what that means and how it's measured. Marcela ran into similar questions when she worked at Conagra Foods. You've almost certainly tried their products ranging from Orville Redenbacher's popcorn to Healthy Choice frozen entrees to Slim Jim's
beef jerky and many more. I had the opportunity to lead sustainability at a Fortune 500 food company, and sustainability meant something very specific
there. Not only did we operate manufacturing facilities that had a large environmental impact on their own right through energy use, water, and creating waste, particularly organic waste, but there was also a significant supply chain impacts, right, from agriculture and all the things that it took to growing the food and getting it to a place where you can produce it to a final product.
So we spent a lot of time, again, thinking about how do we measure and make the biggest impact, not just within our four walls, but across our supply chain? Different industry, but similar questions to what designers and owners of infrastructure face when they think about sustainability. There's a lot of parallels with when you think about applying envision to infrastructure, where it's not just about what you're constructing at this moment over the course of eighteen months or
a few years. It's what's the life cycle impact of this project, and how do I make decisions today that will have the most impactful outcomes, for the fifty year life of an infrastructure project. So in both cases, you really have to think big picture about what does sustainability mean for my project. It's a question many experts in the engineering industry were trying to get their arms around nearly a decade ago, including a then research associate at Harvard named
Anthony Kane. I, did my masters at Harvard and worked there for a number of years doing research, And that varied from material science and product development all the way up to infrastructure and urban planning, but always with a focus on sustainability.
So I think that range really set me up for looking at sustainability at all these different scales, then getting involved with the Zofnis program for sustainable infrastructure at Harvard and their goal to develop this rating system for sustainable infrastructure.
Meanwhile, some heavy hitters in the engineering industry, the American Public Works Association, or APWA, the American Society of Civil Engineers, or ASCE, and the American Council of Engineering Companies, or ACEC, had started developing their own sustainability rating system. To oversee the development, they formed ISI or the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure. We decided to get together and mash them together.
And then what came out of that Envision version two was the product, and I think we were really excited about it. There were just so many things that when the two systems came together, the result was so much better than either system was before on its own. Today, Anthony is the managing director at ISI. Fittingly, it's a nimble nonprofit organization. We're really a small group, kind of small but mighty. I think in a way, our role is to be the clearing house and the consensus builders.
So it's not so much what is done in house, but how do we bring professionals from all across the industry together? That small team from ISI rolled out the new sustainability rating system in 02/2012. Suddenly, the infrastructure industry had a universal report card for sustainability. The the official description would be that Envision is this framework for assessing the sustainability of
all types of infrastructure. But what that really means is it's a set of 64 indicators or metrics, which we call credits, that look at all the different aspects of sustainability that a infrastructure can address. And I think the value of that is that it creates this common definition and common understanding of what sustainable infrastructure is. And so we don't have to waste time anymore reinventing the wheel on what are we talking about when we say sustainable infrastructure. What does
that mean? Mikaela Whitman was one of the early participants in roundtable discussions predating Envision. Today, she oversees the Envision technical review board and is also the director of sustainability at HDR. So there are credits in the categories, for example, of quality of life, leadership, resource allocation, natural world, and climate and resilience. As Mikaela explained, ISI's mission is more about influencing the design at the beginning of your project. Envision is
really a planning tool. In fact, the president of the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure calls it a rating system, usually last when he talks about it because ISI that manages Envision really want Envision to be used as a planning tool to influence design planning and construction. And It's point based. It's somewhat of a checklist of a shopping list, you might say, of sustainability, resiliency, and climate related ideals that infrastructure owners can consider for use on
a project by project basis. In the short time since its inception, Mikaela said Envision has changed how both owners and designers think. Because it is so flexible, it has been a industry game changer in terms of moving all types of industry and infrastructure owners towards integrating sustainability, climate, and resiliency initiatives into their planning and design process for all types of infrastructure. Mikaela said she's seen a fifty fifty split between the project owner or the design firm
seeking envision verification for a project. We have an interesting mix and might even be about the same in terms of the number of projects that we propose Envision on versus the number of RFPs or clients asking about Envision. Maybe about half and half. Beyond the feel good element, we asked what benefits come from having your project verified. Mikaela answered followed by Marcela. I think there are many reasons that include perception
and advanced permitting. In very rare cases at this point, additional funding for the use of InVision, ideally, long term operational savings. But I think the one common thing I've seen across all is the desire to be able to say something to the community and their stakeholders about them doing the right thing. And I think that's an important point. One of our clients who's done it on multiple projects, you know, they really see it as an extension of their corporate sustainability
commitment. Right? They publish a sustainability report annually. They have clear goals at the corporate level, and this allows them to extend that to major capital projects. And they can do it not just saying that they've done it on their own goodwill, but going through the verification process allows them to have that credibility that means a little bit more to their external stakeholders.
Envision bears resemblance to a similar rating system for buildings developed by the US Green Building Council in February. LEED is a third party rating system that is designed for buildings, for measuring sustainability in buildings and their basic site area within their property boundary. So it's gonna look a lot at internal systems and internal efficiencies within that building. That's Kim Sosala Barr, an
architect and senior sustainability consultant at HDR. The experience her team had with implementing lead requirements into building projects helped with rolling out envision to infrastructure design teams. Being involved in architecture and in lead projects gave me a perspective of being able to see a framework in place, how to document specific specific credits, especially talking about materials and recycled content, using regional materials, those sorts of things which are
also included in the Envision rating system. Kim said it's a combination of data, documentation, narrative, and thought process that goes into an application for verification. To submit a project for verification in Envision, some credits are more specific about trying to quantify some materials or energy reduction or water reduction, those kinds of things. So some of them
have some calculations involved. But others are just looking for supporting documentation that tells your story and tells the story of the process process of the project. What sustainability elements were considered? How were those implemented into the design? How were stakeholders involved? And how was some of that feedback and input utilized into the project?
Those types of things. Kim, Mikaela, and Jen Nennetti, who you may remember from our episode about Atlanta's historic Fourth Ward Park, all serve as verifiers for Envision. Jen's a sustainability consultant and HDR's Envision knowledge manager. In her time as a verifier, she's seen all kinds of projects submitted for verification.
Nearly 60 projects have been verified, and they run the gamut from drinking water to wastewater, pump stations, highways, transit, aviation waste projects, as well as energy, including both power plants and renewable energy. Jen's like an encyclopedia of the Envision process, and she walked us through what a team has to do to submit a project.
When a project is envisioned verified, it means that a third party verifier has reviewed the project and has agreed that the project has earned enough points to achieve an award level from ISI, but it involves project teams looking at how sustainability impacts the project and then going through the Envision guidance manual and looking at each credit and each criteria to determine how their project meets those criteria.
So the third party verifier goes through the documentation and reviews to see if they agree with what the project team has said. And if they do, the project can achieve an award level, which is also called a verification. The four levels of verification are bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. With all their experience submitting and or verifying projects for Envision, Jen, Mikaela, Kim, and Marcela put together 11 tips for preparing Envision documentation.
So from here, we'll let them do a little coaching to help you put together a strong application as efficiently as possible. Number one, start with the big picture. Here's Jen followed by Marcela. It's important to start with a high level overview of the project so that the verifier can get an idea about the whole project. Each credit and each criteria of Envision is pretty specific.
So if the verifier starts with a broad overview of what the project is, it gives them a better place to come from in understanding each of those specific criteria and a much easier way for them to be able to place those criteria together. Assume Assume that you're meeting someone for the first time and you're introducing your project to the verifier and things as basic as the the purpose of the project, the geography,
who's involved, who the decision makers are. Give them that once upon a time, there was an infrastructure project introduction before you really get into the the meat of the project. Number two, set some limits. Here's Mikaela and Jen. So, really, any size project could use Envision for verification purposes. The challenge really is as you set up a project that intends to be verified to
define the scope very specifically. So if you have a 21 mile long interstate project, you need to be sure that in every credit, you're considering the impacts to that entire project. So it is an option for larger projects to verify pieces of that project as long as the boundaries are well defined. Maybe it's by phase. Maybe there's a three phase project in each phase because of the length or the complexity wants to get its own rating.
So ISI can be very flexible in terms of the size and scale, but the project team or infrastructure owner needs to carefully describe the boundaries that might be geographical overtime boundaries, or any number of other ways to define specifically what the project includes and what it doesn't include. I would add that if there's a portion of your project that is applicable to a credit and the rest of it isn't,
you should say that. You should should say we have a maintenance facility, and that is the only place that water is gonna be used. And so that's the reason that only the maintenance facility is being included in this water related credit. Jen recommends the KISS principle for number three. Keep it simple, submitter. There are parts of the submittal that are technical.
So there are some credits that have a lot of calculations that have pretty significant water calculations and things like that, but you don't know who the verifier is gonna be. So the verifier could be a water engineer, it could be a transportation engineer, it could be someone who doesn't have an engineering degree. So you want to make sure that as a baseline, you're writing for anyone to be able to read all of
the credits. And then on those credits that maybe do have a more significant technical factors that you write those so that they can be understood by the verifier, that they fulfill all of the credit requirements. And if that verifier would need additional assistance, they could find someone to be able to help them with those very technical pieces. Number four, answer the questions that are asked. Marcela and Kim had something to say about following directions.
The Envision guidance manual has all of the direction that you need at your fingertips. And so I think part of your question is one of answer what they're asking for. It's easy when you're involved in a project for many months, sometimes years, that you can go so far in the weeds, but pull yourself back and look at what the criteria are and give them the answer to those questions. Envision credit also breaks down the criteria into several different
topics that are marked for each credit. And so some of the achievement levels are based on how many of those subtopics you're able to address and and meet. So I would say it gets pretty specific as far as trying to speak to the question that's asked. You can respond in pretty specific terms, how it's noted in the credit and in the subtopics of the Number five, connect the dots. Mikaela, Marcela, and Jen each explained what that
means. A lot of rating systems start their analysis with the actual projects within the project boundary as we talked about earlier, the physical or time boundary. However, Envision allows an infrastructure owner to step back and look at, for example, why a site was selected or why a project went forward while another one didn't. Really thinking about what the decisions that led up to an actual project, did any of them have community or environmental,
economic, or social benefits? So someone working on an envision project can step back and look even maybe a few years back into the development process to see how Envision might apply. I think your comment about the project boundary is very astute because not only are you working on an infrastructure project, but that may exist within a greater infrastructure system. And so on some of these credits, you might step back and look at we've
worked on a number of power projects. How does this new power generation operate in the regional grid, and how does that compare to other generating alternatives? So I think looking at not just, again, the box around your project, but thinking really big picture about the greater impacts is really
important. That's a great example. Another element that comes into that goes back to the stakeholder engagement because envision really looks at not only the fact that agencies or organizations got stakeholder input or looked to the community for input, but they look at how that input was implemented or included in the designs. So that really shows going from where they're talking to stakeholders during the planning phase into implementing things that the
community really wants in the design phase. Number six, communicate all of what is needed and none of what is not. Here's Jen. You want to answer all the questions that are asked, but you don't want to give a lot of extraneous information. So if that credit isn't asking about it, even if it's asked about in the later credit, save it. Save it for the credit that it's most relevant to you. And don't put information in just to
have more information on the page. Which is important because the reviewer has a limited amount of time to spend on your project. Typically, it comes down to about an hour per credit. And sometimes the credits have hundreds of pages of documentation. So it's difficult if it's a lot of extra information that's not needed to try to determine what is relevant and what isn't relevant. Kim took number seven. Be consistent.
It seems like a very simple request to name things consistently and make sure they appear in the order that they're listed and that, but we have seen projects that are submitted where that's not the case. And it's very, very helpful because to a verifier who has not been involved with the project previously may not be a % sure that the wetland delineation study is the same thing that you're referring to as the wetland habitat report
or something. You need to be really consistent so that they can understand exactly what you're referencing. Number eight, be organized. Kim, Jen, and Marcela weighed in. So it's very helpful in that documentation that if a certain report is being submitted as documentation supporting that achievement, show me, mark the page, tell me the page of where that specific info is is located because we we don't have time to go through the
entire document. If you're wanting to show that there was a document that was published and it was an official document, that's one thing. But you really need to be specific about where that information is that relates to the credit. And the ISI provides credit cover sheets. So project teams typically follow them or something similar to them and answer each question. And at the end, there's a table of contents.
So it's helpful if the documentation that's referenced in the narrative is listed in the same order and under the same name in the table of contents and then listed in the same order and the same name in the documentation that is provided so that the verifier can put those three items together very quickly and doesn't have to rifle through hundreds of pages of a
report maybe to find something. And in our quest to avoid treasure hunts for the verifier, we've even take what Jenna said one step further by adding cover sheets between some of those supporting documents so that as the verifiers, again, within an hour, very quickly flipping through a number of reports and supporting documentation, they know that they're seeing two pages of a wetland delineation report, and then there's a cover sheet introducing the next document that's relevant. Number
nine is visual. Make it easy to see what you're saying. Here's Mikayla. Highlight, add comment boxes, circle things. It doesn't have to be done on a computer. It can be done by hand, those kind of annotations, but make it clear. Continuing with our visual theme, Jen and Marcella took number 10. A picture is worth a thousand words. And in addition to photos of your project, that includes one of Jen's favorite things. Maps are the best.
Maps are very helpful, but even when using maps, people should remember to highlight where the project is because maps can be large. Projects can be large. So you wanna make sure you understand where the project boundary is. And then also, what does that mean to the verifier? So if it's a nice satellite map under a certain credit, you want to highlight the project boundary and then also tell the verifier what that means to
them. Does that mean that the project site had already been developed and you can clearly see there's concrete, or does that mean that there are bus stops nearby? You could use the same or a similar map for multiple things, but make sure that each time that a map is used, that verifier understands really the function of that map in that
instance. And we talked earlier about the importance of giving an introduction with the very basics of the project, and I think that a map or a site plan can go a long way with that narrative. And finally, tip number 11, back up your claim. Here's Mikaela and Marcela. I think that one of the most important things is having the facts be concise and clear. Really, at the end of the day, the Envision documentation should
be pretty black and white. I mean, there's a story to tell, but the supporting documentation is all about facts. And a nuance to that is even on those credits where you're pursuing or indicating that it's not applicable, you can't just say it's not applicable. You have to have the same sort of factual evidence that this credit does not apply to my project. Another example is we worked on a solar project, and one of the questions looks at operational water use. And solar farms inherently
do not require water use. This project was located in a geography where rainwater and precipitation cleans the panels, and that's really the only way that you might use water in a solar farm. And because of that, they require no operational water use, so that credit's not applicable. We said 11 tips, but let's make it an even dozen. Here's one
more courtesy of Anthony Kane from ISI. I think there's always a little bit of a trouble if they wait too long in the process to use Envision and and then try to retroactively do the documentation. Projects have done that in the past, but I would say it always seems to be more work on their part to do it that way. And one of the challenges there is that there are specific requirements in InVision. So if you can't document the specific requirements, the verifiers have no choice but to say,
sorry. We can't give it to you because it says x, and you can't prove x. And that can be very frustrating for project teams. Anthony gave a couple examples of things you'd have to be thinking about at the beginning of a project if you wanted to have documentation later. I think a lot of the credits in the resource allocation section really require a plan to document.
So if you think of percentage of recycled materials or things like that, if you haven't really set up the process to do that, it's really difficult to go back afterwards and say, okay. Let's track down all of our materials and try to find out whether they're recycled or not. And so I think those are key ones where you really do need to document them. And others include some of the big picture planning before even breaking ground on
a project. Also, some of the quality of life in leadership because they happen so early in the planning process, unity outreach, stakeholder engagement, things like that, that if you weren't of the mind or or weren't prepared at that time to really collect and document some of those things, you would struggle later on when you're doing the assessment to to reach so far back in time and find that documentation.
Now you have all the tools to add your infrastructure project to the growing list of Envision verified projects. But perhaps more importantly, you know more about the framework to be part of the industry wide movement to make infrastructure more sustainable.
Mikayla said the influence is spreading. I think that the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure is very happy with how many infrastructure owners are adopting Envision, writing resolutions for the use of it, or even trying it out, maybe not getting an actual verification, but using it to influence their design and planning decisions. The transportation industry followed by water are the
largest users of Envision. I think that the diversity in terms of project size, project type, and geographic location continues to increase. So overall, I think ISI is very happy with the growth of the use of the system. Anthony said he's been wowed by the projects he's seen and looks forward to inspiring future innovations in the industry. I see these infrastructure projects, and it's just amazing. Not only the solutions, I think, but the
challenges that they deal with. And I think that, again, part of the value of Envision and part of what ISI is trying to do is not only to change the industry within the industry, but I think to promote to the general public how complex infrastructure is, how important it is, and how we're doing so many amazing things. For more information on this podcast, visit hdrinc.com/speakingofdesign.
If anyone listening to the podcast is looking for more information on Envision, I would strongly encourage visiting the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure's website, ISI, as they go by. Their website is sustainableinfrastructure.org. There's a lot more information, and you can actually download the actual rating system on ISI's website. You could also certainly visit hdrinc.com. That's hdrinc.com. We have quite a bit of information on Envision and sustainability
there. There's also a general forum to submit questions that would get to our sustainability team. We're happy to answer questions about Envision or sustainable infrastructure. If you like what you heard, be sure to rate us or leave feedback on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.