June 4, 2013 by CallisonRTKL

Just Make It Better: Firmwide Conservation

The Leonard Kagan Design Fellowship honors the legacy of RTKL’s Leonard Kagan and the huge contributions he made to the firm in the area of design. The Kagan Fellowship was conceived to celebrate the spirit of exploration as an integral part the creative process. This year’s Kagan focuses on measurable improvement—the audacious idea that anything can be taken to the next level…if only we know how. Over the next four days, we’ll introduce you to this year’s recipients and how they plan to just make it better.

First up: Firmwide Conservation. This extensive team, representing every office across the company, seeks to incentivize energy conservation at RTKL through the implementation of a sub-metering system that will provide real-time information about RTKL’s energy use. These efforts hope to track the impact and influence of our various office conditions and improve RTKL’s overall footprint.

We are so a-typical from the standard Kagan team —a big sprawling group made up of engineers, firmwide staff and even RTKL’s Tax Director. How could we possibly be selected? While the fellowship will help propel our efforts to the next level, we are a team and a project that already sort of existed. Trying to figure out RTKL’s annual energy usage is nothing new for us. Now, we’re faced with delving deeper into calculate our energy use and how can we use less.

Representation by someone in nearly every one of our global offices is a huge benefit for us. This enables us to apply our methods in a wide variety of climates. ASHRAE climate zones are a good de-facto reference for international comparisons. The climate zones are based on heating or cooling degree days, which is a shorthand criteria for guesstimating a building’s heating or cooling needs relative to comfortable baseline outdoor temperatures. The baseline temperatures are 18C/65F for heating and 10C/50F for cooling.

Stay tuned to RTKL You Are Here to check on our progress and see the final results. For now, wish us luck…then go turn down the air conditioning.

Image via OProject@Home

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CallisonRTKL

For more than five decades, Callison and RTKL have created some of the world’s most memorable and successful environments for developers, retailers, investors, institutions and public entities. In 2015, our two practices came together under the Arcadis umbrella, expanding our sphere of influence and the depth and breadth of our resources. Our team is comprised of nearly 2,000 creative, innovative professionals throughout the world who are committed to advancing our client’s businesses and enhancing quality of life.