Sustainability Community Initiatives
Barton Malow’s Sustainability Community meets on a monthly basis with the goal of highlighting and enhancing current sustainable construction and environmentally friendly efforts, researching and implementing new initiatives, and sharing its growing wealth of knowledge with team members throughout the Family of Companies.
Our Sustainability Community is comprised of four committees, each of which is designed to advance the long-term viability of our facilities, local environment, and communities. The committees are as follows:
- Knowledge: This committee explores ways to strengthen and disseminate our understanding of sustainability.
- Jobsites: This committee strives to improve efficiency by minimizing emissions and waste streams at project sites.
- Office: This committee works to foster a culture of reduction, reuse, and recycling at our facilities.
- Communities: This committee focuses on connecting with and helping the communities where we live, work, and play with their respective sustainability initiatives.
Partnerships
Barton Malow joined the DTE MIGreenPower Program in September 2020, increasing renewable energy use by 5%, and in 2021 increased the renewable energy used by our Southfield Headquarters office to 100%.
Barton Malow’s 110,000-SF, four-story corporate headquarters building was built by our own team in 2001 with sustainable and green construction in mind. In addition to now being powered by 100% clean energy, the building also features a Wildlife Habitat Council-certified rain garden, instant hot water heaters, filters on rooftop air handling units, water fill-up stations, light/occupancy sensors in addition to the energy-efficient basics (LED lights, waterless toilets, water-efficient fixtures, and more). These design standards have extended beyond our corporate headquarters to our 16 regional offices.
Planet Detroit
Barton Malow partnered with Planet Detroit, an independent, Detroit-based environmental news nonprofit, in 2021. Through our partnership, Barton Malow team members have access to Planet Detroit content.
Greening of Detroit
Through Planet Detroit, we connected with Greening of Detroit, a nonprofit working to rebuild the tree canopy Detroit lost in the mid-20th century. Over the past 30 years, Greening of Detroit has planted more than 130,000 trees throughout the city. In November 2021, Barton Malow team members participated in a neighborhood planting and we’re interested in partnering with Greening of Detroit on future Community Week events.
Fitwel
Barton Malow’s value of the people and communities our projects are built for goes hand in hand with Fitwel Certification. This certification was designed by public health, facility management, and design experts to encourage projects to be built in a way that enhances the health and wellness of its occupants. In a time when health and wellness have never been more important to all of us, Fitwel is a way to signal our industry’s matching commitment to the health of those our projects will serve.
Barton Malow currently has three Fitwel Ambassadors trained to integrate Fitwel’s strategies within projects and navigate the certification process.
