When Sandra Leibowitz Earley started Sustainable Design Consulting (SDC), she probably didn’t realize she had ventured into such a lucrative business. “Both our offices grew substantially in 2007 and into 2008. That came thanks to the huge groundswell of interest in green building services and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification processes in particular to the point that in 2007, we were hopelessly understaffed and had to decline a number of opportunities,” she relates. While business has fallen off some since then, the firm continues to thrive in today’s economy by occupying a niche in the world of sustainability consulting.

With headquarters in Richmond, Virginia and an office in Washington, D.C., SDC provides consulting on planning, site design, water, energy, materials, and indoor environmental quality issues for sustainable design and operations. They handle commercial office buildings, schools, institutions, multi-family residences, neighborhoods, and recreation centers. According to Leibowitz Earley, “We have worked on projects of all different scales, from the Pentagon down to a 2000-square-foot town hall in Highland Beach, Maryland. The range of projects is huge.” SDC also provides lectures, feasibility studies, workshops, and training on a wide range of green building topics.

Leibowitz Earley, who has a background in architecture, points out that “Many of us are architects.” They also have landscape architects on staff and even one geologist. And one engineer, Sophie Durandeux. But that’s about to change. “We would like to have more engineers. We have a position open right now.” Among other things, Durandeux handles LEED certification for existing building operation and maintenance services.

Having grown up and gone to school in France, Durandeux brings a unique perspective to the company. She has a B.S. degree in industrial engineering from Ecole des Mines in France and an M.S. in process engineering with a minor in energy and mechanical engineering from there. She has an M.S. in integration of energy efficiency and renewable energies in building design from the University of La Rochelle. She came to the United States to learn more about green building here and worked previously as a research associate at the Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh for three years.

“It’s very different from what I was doing before. I like the diversity of projects and team members,” Durandeux says of her work now. “It’s very exciting because you’re not doing the same thing over and over.”

Many clients are architects, while others are either designer/builders, developers, or municipalities. SDC usually acts as a subcontractor to an architect that has designed the project. “We review other people’s drawings for green building criteria and compliance and features,” Leibowitz Earley explains. “We don’t design things per se; we provide guidance and analysis and suggestions to the design professional.”

SDC often works with engineering firms as fellow members of the team. Occasionally, a firm will serve as a subcontractor to them. Usually, the team will include a civil engineering firm to handle areas like stormwater management, while other firms handle MEP (mechanical-electrical-plumbing) engineering.

In detailing the history of SDC, Leibowitz Earley, recalls, “I had focused on sustainable design since before going to graduate school.” She started the company as a sole proprietorship in 2002 while living in Washington, D.C., and other architects joined her. “I was doing similar work for other companies prior to starting out on my own, and honestly, if there had been a firm like SDC at the time, I might have thought twice about starting it myself. It made more sense for me to be my own boss than to find a company, because I would’ve had to go elsewhere at the time. Other companies have emerged as green building consulting firms, but that model didn’t exist much in this country until the last few years.” Having established the office in D.C. with two or three people, she later moved to Richmond to start a second office and eventually grew the company to its present 24 employees, evenly split between the two offices.

On a typical project, Durandeux elaborates, “We work with the design team, including the architect and owner, and go through the design, propose improvements, and discuss the ramifications in terms of upfront costs as well as lifecycle costs. We try to bring these additional dimensions to projects, not only what the costs are going to be during construction and design but how the building is going to be operated and maintained.” They may recommend using techniques like heat or energy recovery systems and calculate energy savings for them. “As a mechanical engineer, I try to make sure the different team members understand how they should use energy modeling and make sure they’re using that as an integrated tool, so they can learn the impact of things like the building orientation, selection of the window type, glazing, and different HVAC systems.”

SDC also looks at other areas of the project such as stormwater management, water reuse to conserve water, and impervious pavements to limit runoff. This may include integrating a green roof in the building design to minimize runoff and reduce the size of cisterns required for stormwater management and energy required for pumping it.

In explaining LEED certification, sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council, Leibowitz Earley says they first work with the design team to find strategies that follow LEED criterion and categories for site planning, site use, water, and energy. “Then we have the materials and indoor environmental quality categories, which tend to focus more on the types of work that architects and interior designers do with space design and material selection and specification.”

While Durandeux works on both new and existing buildings, she has observed a trend lately. “The past few months, I’ve been working a lot on existing buildings just because with the economy, people think more about improving their existing buildings instead of building new ones. I really like interacting with the facility manager because they’re willing to learn a lot about green building. Sometimes in new construction you get frustrated because the owner wants you to do a green building but they’re not very available, and they just don’t want to spend the time to understand why it should be done that way.”

Durandeux expands on the importance of following through on buildings after construction. “It’s great to have a green building, but if you don’t operate the building and systems the way they’re intended to be operated, you’re not going to get as much energy performance, so you want to make sure the design team is on board, the contractor is on board. You also need to educate the owner and also the building manager. We try to provide consulting to everyone on the team.”

Leibowitz Earley explains that new engineers the firm plans to hire would work with Durandeux heavily in the energy realm expanding energy modeling and auditing services. “Besides working on projects focused on energy improvement, they would also serve as resources to the rest of us who aren’t mechanical engineers so we could be a more interdisciplinary company and have more of a breadth of knowledge.” They would assist in expanding the firm’s expertise, as the firm plans to get into carbon footprint assessments this year and would like to get into daylight modeling next year.

While SDC is focusing on central Virginia now, working as far away as Roanoke, Leibowitz Earley notes, “We’re able to work beyond Virginia into other neighboring states. At one point, we had a project in Kentucky. The main reason we haven’t done more work outside of our region stems from the prior days of being overworked and short staffed. Now, we’re more willing and able to take projects in other parts of the country.”

In looking to future expansion, Leibowitz Earley realizes it may take longer than planned with the current economy, but she keeps the faith. “When architects lose projects, or they go on hold, so do ours, so we are feeling it. Now we’re sort of stable, and we’d like to continue to grow, but of course we’re in the same economy as everyone else. It’s an uncertain time as far as what the right size to be is, but we would like to have more diversity of staff roles and expertise in general. We’re looking to expand our training offerings, and to train on a variety of subjects, we need to have expertise on a variety of subjects.”

Leibowitz Earley admits that with so many projects and new things to learn, “It’s a struggle to keep up. But we are, of course, in a nice position of being in the recession-resistant green building industry.”

Snapshot

Company: Sustainable Design Consulting

Type: Engineering and architecture consulting firm

Location: Headquartered in Richmond, Virginia with an office in Washington, D.C.

Website: www.sustaindesign.net

Outlook for hiring engineers:
Looking to hire a mechanical engineer to lead a team and serve as a project manager. Plan to hire more in the future.

What they look for in engineers:
According to Principal Sandra Leibowitz Earley, “a focus and commitment on sustainability and green building.” Would consider hiring entry-level engineers for some positions. Candidates don’t need to be LEED certified but should be able to achieve it in a reasonable time.

Contact for submitting resumes:
Submit resumes to Dell Rasley, human resources manager: careers@sustaindesign.net