What does sustainability mean to you and how does it play a role in your work? Sustainability can mean so many things depending on the person you’re speaking to. To me, it means learning from the past while planning toward the most probable future. I serve as our firm’s sustainable design lead, which allows me to work on interesting projects all over the country. We help our utility clients identify ways to reduce resource consumption, minimize ecological impacts, and design resilient infrastructure. If we do our job correctly, we help to demonstrate the value of the utility’s services to their rate and taxpayers.
Why is sustainability important right now? I’d like to think it has always been important but I certainly believe it is now more important than ever. As our scientific capabilities develop, we continue to quantify and recognize that our increased anthropogenic activities cannot be sustained at the current rates. This is an issue that has been largely ignored and unfortunately politicized for far too long, but the good news is that we have almost reached critical mass with an active generation that’s very focused on change. We always have to remember that humans need the earth in order to survive, and not the other way around!
Why did you join the Sustainable Utilities committee? I joined this committee to both learn and contribute to the conversation. There are so many interesting facets of sustainability as related to the many geographic regions of Virginia, as well as the subsets of our wastewater, water, and stormwater communities.
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