In 2010, Dewberry adopted the 2030 Challenge, a voluntary program that encourages firms to design, construct, retrofit, or otherwise produce buildings that are carbon neutral by 2030. Along with hundreds of other signatories, it's our goal to make today's cutting edge designs tomorrow's standard of building care. The challenges are met incrementally, and every five years we're offered new targets. That means every five years we have to step up our game.

This year, our goal is to design buildings that use 70 percent less energy than the 2008 standard. At first glance, a 70 percent reduction in energy use over six years seems wildly aggressive, but the goal is really closer to a 40 percent reduction if we look at the strides our industry has made.

Why the reduction? The industry has caught up. Building designs are being produced (with minor consideration given to energy conservation, sustainability, insulation, and building management) that beat the 2008 standard by 30 percent simply because of better technology; so all our designs have to do is make up for that leftover 40 percent.

The Great Technology Exchange

In the quest to create a truly living building, the 2030 Challenge creates an excellent opportunity for the sharing of technology. At Dewberry, our more than 40 locations create a web of design ingenuity that spans from Massachusetts to California and gives us the option to import technologies from other regions. In fact, we're introducing Oklahoma to popular Midwestern technologies that have rarely been used in the southwest, like HVAC systems that are smart enough to bring a room down to 72 degrees by pushing in fresh 70-degree outdoor air instead of spending energy kicking on its AC system.

I anticipate the most impactful projects will be the small additions and renovations. We're able to set relatively high standards for such projects since they don't require massive premiums for top-of-the-line sustainability considerations.

Keeping up the Speed Past 2015

Our true mettle will be tested over the next 15 years, when the incremental goals are to design buildings that use 80, 90, and 100 percent less energy. Right now, there are energy-saving ideas everywhere we look. However, those ideas are going to gradually become more scarce. Like an accelerating car, getting initial speed is easy, but getting faster from there is exponentially harder.

We're going to have to be more creative than ever before to reach these goals… but that's all part of the fun.