materially better buildings are beautiful

R.W Kern Center, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA

Class of 1966 Environmental Center, Williams College, Williamstown, MA

materially better buildings are high-performing

Hitchcock Center for the Environment, Amherst, MA

materially better buildings are healthy

Science and Engineering Complex, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

materially better buildings are transformational

let's make every building materially better

A New Vision for Project & Materials Management

The Objective: 


Improved Communication, Specs, Data & Continuity

Most project teams—including those pursuing cutting-edge sustainability goals while seeking process efficiency—use spreadsheets, along with PDFs of specifications and submittals, to anchor their materials specification, tracking and record keeping. Yet spreadsheets and PDFs alone lack context and continuity, and are typically a one-off proposition. At completion, teams archive the information and begin anew. Master specifications, the design team’s key deliverable and foundation for future work, are updated only incrementally at best.

Fully capitalizing on the invaluable data, insight and advancement earned through each completed project, and ensuring master specs keep pace with latest sustainability attributes has been impossible. The key to continual quality and efficiency improvements is a new process—with communication, data storage and analysis tools—for continually optimized results. Information is preserved and leveraged, project documents are tighter going into the construction phase, and successes are perpetuated.

The Tool: 


Red2Green

Red2Green (R2G), IES’ proprietary healthier materials management platform, provides subscribers—architects, spec writers,  sustainability consultants, construction managers, building owners and researchers—data access from anywhere. Developed to facilitate LBC Red List compliance, R2G now supports all projects by facilitating project management, fostering team communication, providing at-a-glance progress reports and organizing project information and documents for seamless retrieval and analysis. The R2G database contains 20,000-plus products from nearly 5,000 manufacturers, plus HPD and Declare data.

Teams coordinate in real time while continually documenting building materials procurement and use. Deliverables include establishing a Portfolio environment, which continually leverages data, wisdom and results to inform ensuing projects—building after building.

R2G-equipped teams can, according to their preferences, analyze and optimize materials healthiness. Seamlessly measuring data against metrics allows product benchmarking for both project and firm sustainability goals and documents successes. Effortless advocacy helps drive the market toward better future options. At completion, R2G data provides the owner with an enduring Materials Passport, documenting a building’s precise makeup throughout its useful life.

The Model: 


Integrated Materials Management (IMM)

An Integrated Materials Management system continually guides project processes and captures materials data—from design through construction, renovation and even demolition. IMM provides current and future design/construction teams with specific templates of product types and products that can be reused.

New IMM projects immediately utilize all previous and ongoing product results, leveraging both the effort and the substantial gains of using better materials. IMM ensures continual improvement: each ensuing building incorporates and ratchets the successes of the last.

The Team:


Integrated Eco Strategy

Since 2010, IES has facilitated all aspects of sustainable and regenerative building design, renovation and construction. Through providing green aspects support on dozens of projects, IES has developed, tested and refined R2G, helping clients create healthier, more sustainable buildings efficiently and cost effectively.

Discover what Integrated Eco Strategy’s clients and partners–sustainability leaders including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, the Natural Resources Defense Council, ZGF Architects, Brightworks Sustainability, Bruner/Cott Architects and so many others–already know: new buildings and renovations can be more environmentally sound, energy and resource sustainable, and toxin-free than ever, affordably and efficiently.

We’ve helped them, let us help you.

From RED LIST to GREEN LIGHT.

71

Projects in Red2Green

23,923

Products In Our Library

3,063,863

Square Feet Of Projects

5,066

Manufacturers In The Database

Let’s Start a Project Together.

The Class of 1966 Environmental Center earns Living Building certification.

Our hearty congratulations to IES' sustainability partner Williams College’s Class of 1966 Environmental Center, just named the 34th Living Building by the International Living Future Institute. IES, as Williams' Living Building Challenge (LBC) project consultant, worked with the school for a decade to achieve the rigorous requirements for full LBC certification. The world's most advanced green-building standard, LBC requires--in addition to other sustainability goals--that all energy and water used in the building be generated on site, on an annual net-zero basis and without the use of fossil fuels.