In the early 21st century, given the depth of its resources and the diversity of both its professional staff and its capabilities, CH2M HILL is able to take any industrial or public works project from concept through planning, financing, design, construction, operations and maintenance. Through a global network of 370 permanent and project offices, the firm provides local professional advice and global resources from more than 41 countries on six continents. The firm’s main business groups include Water (focusing on water resources and treatment), Transportation (including aviation, ports and intermodal, transit, and highways), Energy & Environmental Systems (including energy, environment, telecommunications, nuclear, facility management, and services for the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense), and Industry (focusing on electronics, pharmaceuticals, food, and consumer products). In addition, CH2M HILL provides contract operations and management services infrastructure facilities, through Operations Management International (OMI), a CH2M HILL company, created in 1980, that serves municipal and industrial clients worldwide. In 2001, OMI was awarded the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award. Alongside these established areas of business, from time to time a new area of practice will emerge within the firm. One early stage practice group that has emerged in the firm during the past decade is that of Sustainable Development.
In many respects, CH2M HILL’s primary product is knowledge. That knowledge resides in its people. It is no surprise then that the journey toward integrating sustainability thinking into practice at CH2M HILL arose from the passion, interests, curiosity, concerns and knowledge of its professional staff. Furthermore, and consistent with CH2M HILL’s culture, the movement toward sustainability was not driven from the top down. Although it has enjoyed the support and encouragement of CH2M HILL’s president and CEO, Ralph R. Peterson, from the beginning, it has emerged from within the company. The professionals at CH2M HILL work in areas that are directly related to human impacts and dependence on the environment, whether it is designing the built environment or in providing clean water, treating wastewater, building a transit system, preventing or mitigating pollution or handling contaminated and hazardous waste sites. A considerable amount of this work is dealing with environmental problems resulting from human activities.
CH2M HILL is leveraging its significant knowledge and experience in environmental issues to become one of the leaders in the "how to" of sustainable development. This requires integrating knowledge, talents and resources that have been traditionally dispersed or focused on other priorities into an approach that is better designed for sustainability. The company increasingly sees sustainability as a method of planning positively for the future, as opposed to reacting to existing problems. It is also a filter through which growth and development options may be usefully viewed to make more effective decisions with long-term implications.
Because the nature of CH2M HILL’s traditional work is so integrally connected to many aspects of sustainability, there are countless projects we could feature to demonstrate how the company contributes to a more sustainable society. The company’s basic approach is to view sustainability as a framework for decision-making that is dynamic and adaptable. A sampling of CH2M HILL’s projects include their work with Nike, (particularly around manufacturing), with U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, with a new sustainably designed community in Burnaby, near Vancouver, B.C., and a community-based water program in the Ukraine.
NIKE, Oregon and Overseas
CH2M HILL has worked closely with Nike since 1998 to integrate sustainability into many aspects of Nike’s far-flung operations, helping Nike’s sub-contract manufacturers reduce pollution, petroleum-based solvents, solid waste, and water use, as well as helping the company with sustainable product designs. Most of the petroleum-based solvents have been replaced with more benign water-based chemicals that are equal in quality and, in some cases, cheaper to use. CH2M HILL has provided expertise on green chemistry issues and tracking the use of PVC in Nike’s products. The firm has also consulted on confidential processes and material analyses to achieve the goal of a closed-loop product life cycle. In Nike footwear sub-contractors’ operations in 45 factories in six countries, a CH2M HILL study identified short- and long-term opportunities to reduce pollution and save operating costs. Significantly, this study confirmed the linkage between pollution prevention and improved business performance.
CH2M HILL has been Nike’s global water use and wastewater consultant since 1998. The firm is working on a water quality initiative to ensure that the wastewater from several hundred of Nike’s apparel and textile sub-contractors is treated and discharged in a responsible manner. This includes setting global quality standards for wastewater discharge. CH2M HILL is also providing worldwide training to Nike staff and textile vendors on water conservation and water quality. The firm is working to optimize water usage in Nike footwear sub-contractors’ factory operations and to coordinate the installation of wastewater treatment systems in several dozen factories in Asia. Most recently, CH2M HILL has been working with Nike on the creation of their Responsibility Reports, including the development of sustainability indicators.
U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
CH2M HILL is currently working with U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, and the Marine Corps Air Station, New River, in North Carolina, together referred to as Camp Lejeune, to promote environmental sustainability in the day-to-day operations of the bases. This project includes the development of an Environmental Sustainability Guidance Manual (ESGM) and training video for department managers to aid in planning, developing and implementing environmentally sustainable future operations both locally and abroad. Camp Lejeune, one of the largest marine bases in the world, provides specialized training to prepare troops for amphibious and land combat operations. The 153,000-acre base supports 144,000 marines, sailors, including approximately 40,000 battle ready war fighters, and their families. The base has 6,800 buildings, 450 miles of roads, a municipal solid waste landfill, five water treatment plants, and one wastewater treatment plant. The perimeter of the base includes 14 miles of Atlantic Ocean frontage. Working with a team at Camp LeJeune, CH2M HILL examined all the operations on the installation, many of which had never been included in the traditional environmental compliances processes.
Burnaby Mountain Project, British Columbia
On the opposite coast of North America from Camp Lejeune, atop Burnaby Mountain, (roughly 15 miles/24 km from downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, and approximately 100 miles/160 km north of Seattle, Washington), plans are developing for a new sustainable community with "green infrastructure" to be built on and next to the campus of Simon Fraser University, one of Canada’s leading universities.
At the CH2M HILL Canada office in Vancouver, Kim Stephens, vice-president and project manager, Water Group, working with an interdisciplinary team of consultants led by Hotson-Bakker Architects, is planning a world-class sustainable community where virtually every aspect of this model development will address environmental issues. The project includes 4,500 Earth-friendly residential homes and a variety of retail stores, restaurants and schools. The lower portion of the mountain will remain in its natural state as a permanent conservation area.
The new community will be highly urban, with densities ranging from townhouse up to ten-story towers. It will include a main street commercial area, new university buildings, and extensive underground parking. This density of development will involve extensive modifications to the land, including the realignment of several intermittent and disturbed headwater streams, as well as daylighting of existing piped watercourse. The density transfer of the project is one of its sustainability objectives. Rather than creating a single-family housing development that would cover the entire hillside, the density transfer accommodates about the same number of units on 20 percent of the land area, saving 80 percent of the land for conservation purposes.
The second sustainability objective is to create a compact and complete community, integrated with the university campus, that will be walking and transit oriented, reducing the need for single-occupancy vehicle use by up to 40 percent compared with a more traditional single-family development.
The third sustainability objective is to plan for performance monitoring and adaptive management. The Burnaby Mountain Community will be implemented in stages over a 25-year period. This will create opportunities for constant improvement in successive phases of the stormwater and watercourse management plan.
One of the team’s responsibilities is to develop an achievable storm water management strategy, a key component of the overall design. The concept design reflects an integrated approach to storm water and riparian corridor management that is holistic in selecting on-site runoff control measures that will protect the downstream fish habitat in Stoney Creek, one of the few remaining high-quality fish-bearing tributaries in the Brunette River Basin. The over-arching watershed protection strategy for Stoney Creek was developed during 1998 and 1999 by CH2M HILL’s Stephens and his Seattle-based colleague, Bill Derry.
Over the past four years, through a cross-border sharing of knowledge to advance storm water management, Stephens and Derry have had a major impact in influencing discussion and thinking in British Columbia and Washington State regarding the practical applications of science-based approaches. They pioneered the concept of "integrated storm water management" to fully integrate the engineering, planning and ecological perspectives. The Burnaby Mountain project provides the opportunity to translate the Stoney Creek watershed strategy into a set of practical principles and achievable targets that will guide the detailed site planning for land development.
Municipal Water System, Ukraine
In the Ukraine, citizen involvement has become vital to meeting the challenge of providing fresh water at an affordable price. As the old infrastructure in the region deteriorated, a new approach was required to make the transition from a centralized model to a customer-focused process in which consumers pay for services that were formerly heavily subsidized by the government. It was an approach that involved members of the local community in planning and funding new water systems. This was a radical concept in the newly independent nation facing complex economic and political changes.
The project was led by CH2M HILL, which, for more than 50 years, has successfully applied technology to deliver clean water to people while protecting natural systems throughout the world. Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the project involved several Ukrainian cities. In addition to the basic equipment to analyze systems, Kris Buros, Project Manager, Water Group, CH2M HILL International, and his team are providing Ukrainian water utilities with on-site training on how to involve the public in planning and decision-making.
A major part of the program involves ascertaining people’s opinions through the use of focus groups, surveys and face-to-face discussions. The information is used to develop media outreach and public education programs. Final planning by the utilities focuses on customer needs and incorporates public hearings. Virtually the entire project is carried out by local Ukrainian citizens. As a result, even with the end of CH2M HILL’s involvement, the concept of engaging people in decisions on infrastructure planning and funding will remain in place to ensure that the achievements are sustainable.
Ultimately the project does much more than improve the delivery of water to meet basic needs: it helps to create a human infrastructure that empowers people by involving them in their own future.*
Useful information on CH2M HILL’s sustainable development services can be found on their website.*
* The comments above are excerpted from the book, DANCING WITH THE TIGER: Learning Sustainability Step by Natural Step, by Nattrass and Altomare, New Society Publishers, 2002.
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