Middletown-based Al Engineers, a leading engineering and technical services company focusing on bridges, highways, buildings and other infrastructure, doesn’t utilize environmentally-friendly building practices solely in the products and services it sells. The company’s management team has internalized the company’s focus on green construction so much so that Al Engineers has become an example for sustainability industry-wide.
“It’s more than a business practice of sustainable design,” said Abul Islam, Al Engineers founder, president and CEO. “Part of it is a belief in the future generation and based on our times; if we do not practice sustainable engineering and construction, we will not succeed as a society.”
Al Engineers has been awarded the Business Champions Award for Sustainability by the Hartford Business Journal and the Metro Hartford Alliance.
The 13-year-old company built its corporate offices in Middletown 11 years ago, and has since expanded to include other locations in Boston, Rhode Island, New York City and Richmond, Virginia. Two years ago, Al purchased the former home of WFSB-TV at Constitution Plaza in Hartford with plans to gut it and build a new green Al Tech Center in its place.
“We will use solar energy and also use fuel cells to become at least 50 percent self-sufficient,” Islam said. “The (window) glass we are using is state of the art.”
The Tech Center will also feature a high-tech air system that will offer 100 percent fresh air to the building.
“It will reduce the effect of the hottest days of August and the coldest days in January,” Islam said.
The company’s goal is to achieve platinum certification, the highest of four certification levels, on the building from the U.S. Green Building Council. When completed, the 13-story, 260,000 square-foot building will have space for several other like-minded businesses as it moves its 75 Middletown-based employees to the new downtown location.
Islam said Al Engineers’ focus on sustainability is part of every aspect of the business.
“It’s not just about recycled materials — it’s a holistic approach,” he said. “If you are rehabilitating a bridge, you would like to first look at (whether we can) reuse some of the materials rather than hauling in more materials that add to the carbon footprint.”
Islam said using green construction practices in bridge-building is an emerging trend, but is experiencing slower growth than green building methods in structure building.
“You take a (sustainable) approach to each and every approach to the building design, and you can do that with a bridge design,” he said. “You want to make sure you cause the least amount of impact.”
Al Engineers is ready to meet the needs of forward-thinking state departments of transportation, some of which are coming out with what Islam called a “rational approach with regards to the cost savings” of bridge construction projects. Current local bridge construction projects are done in such a way that one direction of traffic is affected at all times. Islam said he and his management team have been learning more about the trend of constructing auxiliary bridges, which are built elsewhere and are transported in one piece to be erected on site over the course of a night.
“It costs more money — about ten to 12 percent more, but you have to look at the cost of pollution (with traditional bridge construction),” he said. “You have to look at time savings as dollar savings. We are trying to establish clear cut parameters so we can save on the lifecycle of the bridge.”
Al Engineers expects green building projects to increase over the next few years, as the up-front cost of implementing green building practices and materials continues to drop, effectively saving more money in the long run.
While some green technologies Al Engineers supports aren’t yet regularly practiced, Islam said he and his company are working to get the word out.
“I talk and talk and talk and try to encourage these engineers to talk about these exciting things we are doing,” he said. “It’s about bringing efficiency into the system. It’s not about your specialty — whether you’re a civil engineer, a mechanical engineer or an architect. We all need to work together for the objective of serving society.”
Islam said he and his staff believe that corporate social responsibility is the job of every business. He and his top engineering staff members volunteer in the community and serve as mentors to promising inner city high school students who may be the future engineers of tomorrow.
“Corporate social responsibility doesn’t have to mean Bill Gates or IBM,” he said. “It can be small business that can directly affect the community.”g
