Each year, we track several indicators that show progress toward our goals for socially responsible and sustainable projects.
ENR Top 100 Green Buildings Design Firms Ranking: Engineering News-Record’s annual Top 100 Green Buildings Design Firms ranking is based on the year’s design or construction revenue from projects that are green-building registered or certified by an independent rating organization (such as GBCI/LEED). Thornton Tomasetti continues to rank among the top 20 firms.
Number of Structural Projects Reported to SE 2050: In 2020, we joined the Structural Engineers 2050 Commitment (SE 2050) as an inaugural member and have met our reporting requirement each year since. Before 2020, we measured embodied carbon for more than five years as part of an R&D project, the Thornton Tomasetti Embodied Carbon Lab. We shared that data as a member of the AIA 2030 Commitment and as a research partner of both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Carbon Leadership Forum. We continue to increase the number of projects in our annual embodied-carbon calculations toward our target of measuring embodied carbon for all our structural projects.
Number of Sustainability Consulting Projects: Thornton Tomasetti began offering sustainability consulting in 2012. Since first reporting our project numbers in 2018, we have provided sustainability services, such as energy modeling, net-zero strategies and green building consulting certifications, for 757 projects. These projects encompass everything from dormitories to stadiums and are located around the world.
CO2e Reduction in Metric Tons From Sustainability Consulting: The carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) reduction metric tracks the impact of energy-efficiency improvements from our sustainability consulting services. Each value is the sum of savings derived from energy modeling on sustainability projects completed that year. Since 2021, our work on all-electric and highly efficient buildings has continually increased.
Average Per-Project Savings From Sustainability Consulting: Average per-project cost savings are derived from the average energy cost savings from our sustainability consulting projects each year. Large-scale projects contributed to a growth in total savings in 2022. The 2023 dip reflects the higher baseline performance for a “typical building” caused by more stringent energy codes.
Employees With Green Building Accreditation: More than 200 of our employees have a green building or a broader sustainable design accreditation. These include LEED Green Associate (GA), LEED Accredited Professional (AP), and other sustainability accreditations outside the LEED program, such as WELL Accredited Professional (AP) and Envision Sustainability Professional (SP).
Research and Development Spending: Our R&D spending includes staffing and other expenses for CORE studio, our virtual idea incubator, as well as support for traveling innovation tournaments that identify and fund ideas from employees across the firm. We continue to prioritize R&D in pursuit of our long-term goal of becoming the global driver of change and innovation in our industry. In 2023, we saw a significant rise in R&D funding and an increase in the number of project ideas that target environmental improvements.
