AECO spotlight: Nexii

Callahan Tufts, design lead, explains why the company is committed to sustainability, the challenge of creating environmental product declarations (EPDs), and how this effort helps the firm to win work.

1. The commitment: “When the company was started, sustainability was in our constitution,” Tufts says. “It’s been at the forefront of the company since the get-go, which means that we have a team whose sole role is sustainability. They’re working with all our departments, all the time, on how we can keep sustainability front-of-mind when we’re making decisions.”

2. The challenge: “A big win for us was creating our environmental product disclosures, which were published recently,” Tufts says. “For a composite-type panel system like ours, it’s a difficult task, because you’ve got multiple materials from multiple sources. It’s a very manual process, and the data is fragmented. That’s a big barrier for a lot of people. If it was easy and the information people needed was accessible, more people would be creating EPDs.”

3. The business benefits: “When we do a project, we can provide a CO2 number using the actual data,” Tufts says. “We can break it down and say, ‘Here’s how much is in the walls; here’s how much is in the roof.’ That’s been huge because we can compare our projects to others and show our clients that we can help them hit their goals.”