Sustainability has become an integral part of the DLZ culture. We practice sustainability year round, not just on Earth Day.  Daily lifestyle actions are implemented into our policies to conserve natural resources and to minimize the company’s environmental footprint.  Our staff is fully engaged in building a sustainable future.  We recycle in all our offices and promote a paperless business model. We use energy and water saving technologies and utilize LEED principals for all office renovations. We utilize green infrastructure at some of our offices to reduce stormwater volumes and improve its discharge quality.  We promote a “non-idling” practice for our large vehicle fleet.

Our professional staff members, many who are LEED Accredited Professionals, utilize the proven scientific and technological advances to reduce the carbon footprint and minimize the environmental impact associated with our projects. DLZ actively promotes renewable energy technology here and abroad, including research and development of minimum impact hydro kinetic technology.  We also seek opportunities to restore our environment and create a new model of sustainable community development.

Our work has many environmental benefits:

• Green Infrastructure (GI) utilization provides multiple environmental benefits, including water quality management and flood control.  Our designers utilize GI on most of our projects. For example, we successfully use stone and compost media for odor control from the combined sewer system in Downtown Columbus; we developed “hybrid ditches” approved as BMP and GI by the City of Indianapolis.
• We utilize and promote pipe rehabilitation technologies providing additional structural integrity for old pipe, and extending its useful life for 50+ years, at the same time minimizing environmental and social impacts compared to the traditional open cut installation.
• We design facilities utilizing LEED principals
• We improved many communities by promoting and designing walk trails and bike paths, improving park systems and in general improving communities’ connectivity.
• DLZ has helped communities remediate and redevelop brownfields, mitigate wetlands, and remove hazardous materials from our environment.
• We promote the adaptive re-use of existing and historical facilities by designing electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and building envelope renovations that result in spaces meeting the needs of our contemporary world while preserving the integrity of the existing community fabric and encouraging materials recycling, minimizing demolition wastes, and preserving those elements with high embodied energy content. We rehabilitated our DLZ Indianapolis office building, sited in the Wholesale Historic District and constructed in 1909 and were able to achieve LEED Silver certification while developing a cost effective, sustainable design.
• We plan our large footprint projects with an eye on avoiding or minimizing impacts to significant environmental resources and employ mitigation techniques that are proven and result in a synergistic and net positive impact.
• We embrace hybrid technology and have committed to upgrade our office pool vehicles to hybrid vehicles. To date, DLZ has purchased three hybrid vehicles.
• We implemented state-of-the-art video conference system in all offices, reducing the need for face-to-face meetings, which significantly reduced our carbon footprint.
• We incorporate sustainable practices in our culture. In 2014, DLZ spent over $700,000 to renovate its Columbus office using materials with high recyclable content and low VOCs. We installed energy efficient LED lighting and an energy management system and reduced our electric usage in the Columbus office by over 40%. DLZ is currently upgrading to energy efficient lighting in its Lansing, Fort Wayne, and South Bend offices. DLZ’s Indianapolis office currently features state of the art energy management system and LED lighting.