I grew up in the construction industry. My father worked for a mechanical contractor, and I’d often accompany him on his side jobs. At 18, I got my first job working as a laborer/carpenter’s apprentice for a local general trade contractor. From there, I went on to college and graduated with a degree in civil engineering. I sought a position with Gilbane’s Virginia office after graduation and was offered an opportunity to join the Jacksonville team as a project engineer. I moved to Florida not knowing a single soul, but confident in my career path and my future. I was promoted to superintendent two years later.
Where the journey begins.
August 2020, I was assigned to the FIS Corporate Office Building project in Jacksonville, FL, a complex, 12-story, 377,000-SF ground-up concrete building that’s being constructed concurrently with an adjacent eight-level, above-grade precast parking garage with approximately 1,624 spaces. Hines, a world-class developer with whom Gilbane has a long-standing relationship as the development manager on the project, incorporated sustainability mandates into our contract. The building is targeting LEED Platinum and WELL Gold certifications and is tracking embodied carbon to measure and reduce its carbon footprint during construction.
It takes teamwork!
While serving as a superintendent, I was also called upon to be the sustainability champion, which entailed tracking the project’s embodied carbon. Although I had no previous experience with carbon tracking, I did know which building materials contain the highest carbon values. Knowing the cementitious materials would be top of the list, one of my first calls was to Nation Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA).
It was through NRMCA that I got my first dose of understanding Environmental Product Declarations (EPD). An EPD is a certification that transparently communicates the environmental performance or impact of any product or material over its lifetime. This became my North Star as I and the project team began to navigate our way through the process of procuring materials that perform to project specifications, yet have inherently lower carbon values, hence lower EPDs. Other high-carbon materials include structural steel and metal framing, gypsum, rebar, ceiling tiles, and masonry, to name a few.
Pretty Amazing Results!
Sustainable Investment Group (SIG), our project’s sustainability consultant, has been working with our team to track all building materials as well as other associated environmental impacts, including recycling, temporary fuel and power, diesel, generator fuels, and water. The resulting data is entered into the TrueCarbon Score platform, generating a real-time carbon score for the project. The team is proud to say that we currently have reached nearly a 40% reduction of the building’s carbon footprint and achieved a TrueCarbon Score of 59, a high score for a new construction project! 
Where do we go from here?
This incredible project will be substantially complete this spring. I am so proud of our team’s work and all that we learned on this project. It’s been a career-changing experience and an incredible opportunity for me. The close partnerships our teams formed with our subcontractor and vendor partners, and the collective feeling of bettering our community, have left an indelible mark on me. What we put in our buildings really does matter as it has a lasting impact on our communities and the planet for generations to come. Being intentional about the materials that we procure and utilize in the built world has consequences. We can achieve all our shared goals of cost, schedule, and quality standards while being inclusive and mindful of a larger mission of building for the future with sustainability top of mind.
