Partners in Profile
November has been a busy month for the folks at DIRTT. Not only have they signed on as the newest imagineCALGARY Partner, they’re also the recipients of the first-annual imagineCALGARY Award for Leadership in Sustainability. All this is in addition to receiving the 2008 Alberta Science & Technology Award for Outstanding Achievement in Applied Technology and Innovation in October.
Environmental sustainability is a core value at DIRTT, making them a welcome addition to the imagineCALGARY Partnership.
Q. How do DIRTT’s goals align with the imagineCALGARY Vision?
DIRTT manufactures prefab, movable walls in their Calgary plant where only non-toxic water-based finishes are used and the finishing line is UV, lessening the energy load and pollution released to create the walls.
These walls are used in place of drywall and studs in the workplace. They are installed rather than built on-site and they are agile to move and adapt to any changes in the office without demolition and rebuilding.
DIRTT’s approach produces less construction waste for landfills and reduces the transportation pollution emitted during construction, and encourages the survival of established buildings.
Q. How important are sustainability principles to DIRTT?
DIRTT stands for ‘Doing It Right This Time’ and by ‘Right’ we mean being environmentally sustainable. The design and function of DIRTT Walls has resulted in several international awards. Interiors & Sources Magazine, the leading publication for sustainability in design, named DIRTT founder and CEO, Mogens Smed, “Environmental Champion” in 2004. Innovations such as engineering universal horizontal support for furniture and accessories, rather than sporadic vertical support, resulted in DIRTT receiving the ‘2006 Excellence in Partnership Green Industry Contractor’ award from the Coalition for Government Procurement (the teams responsible for specifying goods and services for all levels of the United States governments). DIRTT was given the award because all U.S. levels of governments are forced to send furniture into landfills at an alarming rate – simply because when they change their offices to suit new situations, the furniture module no longer physically fits into the space on the vertical supports. (Over three billion pounds of commercial furniture is sent to the landfill in the U.S. annually.)
Q. How does DIRTT anticipate using the imagineCALGARY Plan?
DIRTT’s vision is in lock step with the imagineCALGARY Plan. The vision of connectedness, a diversified and environmentally sustainable business landscape and limiting sprawl are all part of the backbone of DIRTT. We will use the Plan to stay on track while we head for our goals to lower our energy use through solar and wind power and work with alternative freight choices such as train transportation. It will help us keep a running tally of what we’ve done and keep our goals in sight of what we still need to do.
Q. Why should sustainability be a priority for Calgary businesses and organizations?
Calgary is beautiful. Calgary has great weather (for Canada!). Calgary is full of “can-do” attitude. It should always be a draw for people and businesses -- even if oil stops being the fuel of choice. But if we don’t prepare for that day, which may only be 20 – 30 years away, we will become a ghost town. By preparing the foundation now that uses less energy, creates less pollution, conserves water and has a more efficient real estate footprint, we will ensure our vitality into the next century.
Q. What benefits does imagineCALGARY offer the Calgary community?
One of the difficulties in helping Calgarians understand our large footprint on the planet is that we don’t have many physical signs to tell us we are in trouble. Our border is ever expanding, we still seem to have water, the wind blows our pollution away most days and aside from the odd spring flood – we have no drastic weather to deal with (beyond the usual ‘drastic’ dip to -40!).
What imagineCALGARY can do is make us consider the future and determine our path before we are swept away by the results of our careless actions.
