We all want to leave the earth in a better place than we found it.

The majority of construction products are landfilled (or worse) long before they live out their useful lives, and the carbon emitted to create these materials will continue to exist in the atmosphere for 100 years or longer. When we think of low carbon buildings, we need to think of circularity and optimizing the use and maintenance phase as well.

Build in Flexibility

Modular demountable partitions are interior wall systems that can be quickly assembled and disassembled, providing a flexible and cost-effective way to create interior spaces. These partitions are typically made of lightweight materials, such as metal, glass, wood, or composite materials—with a wide range materials, finishes, and design options to choose from—and are designed to be easily moved and reconfigured as needed.

Deconstruction vs. Demolition

Through DPR's self-perform work group, we perform deconstruction services, which not only allows us to maintain a safer environment and control the critical path, but also to focus on waste diversion. By calling this service deconstruction instead of demolition, it showcases how we focus on disassembling the building and looking at the parts that we can salvage and reuse or recycle. On a recent project in Georgia, our team was able to divert over 95% of the waste by smart deconstruction planning and execution.

DPR has also supported customers in looking at innovative strategies for breaking down materials. In Arizona, DPR is supporting a Meta-led team in exploring a concept that uses mushrooms to break down drywall waste. Along with Mycocycle and Rockwood Sustainable Solutions, the team is piloting a process that uses mycelium to produce a new composite material to help address the 660 million tons of construction waste that gets dumped every year in the U.S.

Facilitate Energy Use Awareness and Transparency

Understanding building energy consumption is the first and most important step to planning or operating sustainable and efficient buildings.

To encourage the highest performance among our own DPR portfolio, we’ve installed metering and display hardware in our most public spaces to fully disclose our energy and utility use performance. Further, these locations are connected in an interactive interface that allow for the easy comparison of facilities in different climates and building types to better understand energy use intensity – the measure of a high-performance building. As a result, we have been able to tweak and adjust systems and settings in real time to ensure we are running efficiently.

Donating to the Local Community

To prevent unused materials from going to waste, DPR has partnered with organizations across the country to put those materials to good use. In Charlotte, N.C., DPR worked with the Historic West End Partners, a non-profit committed to the progress of the historic African American corridor and its residents and leads the effort for the commercial district’s advancement. The team provided unused materials from a recently completed project including FRP panels, an exit sign, transaction window, metal studs, drywall, and toilet accessories, to renovate their community kitchen, saving thousands.

Covering all the bases to maximize carbon savings can be complicated, but having a partner with the right expertise can simplify the process and help get the intended results.

• Understand your organization's overall carbon reduction goals
• Include carbon budgets in the owners program requirements and basis of design
• Provide specifications requiring environmental project declaration or meeting certain embodied carbon thresholds
• Engage DPR's in-house team team to perform whole building life cycle analysis studies
• Discuss low carbon and design strategies early in the programming stages