The Future. Built Smarter.

IMEG Corp.
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Engineers and designers from IMEG, a top 5 U.S. engineering firm, discuss innovative and trend-setting building and infrastructure design with architects, owners, and others in the AEC industry. Topics touch on all market sectors, engineering disciplines, and related services.

  1. May 22

    WCAP Part III: The structural trail to net zero carbon by 2050

    In the final installment of a three-part series on IMEG’s 2026 Whole Carbon Action Plan (WCAP), senior sustainability and energy engineer Laura Hagan discusses how the company is tackling embodied carbon in structural systems. IMEG’s carbon reduction journey began four years ago when the firm became a signatory to SE 2050, the structural engineering industry’s initiative to eliminate embodied carbon in structures by the year 2050. That original structural-focused plan has evolved into IMEG’s broader WCAP, which now also incorporates MEP and infrastructure disciplines. Laura, who also is a structural engineer, says SE 2050 “is a great program to be a part of because it really challenges us to be accountable for how we are designing and how we are trying to reduce embodied carbon.” Critical to this effort is first being able to measure the carbon impacts across IMEG’s large national project portfolio. “We are in the process of trying to figure out what our designs mean in terms of carbon emissions,” Laura says. “Unfortunately, with the size of IMEG, it's not possible for us to do a whole building lifecycle assessment on every project the firm designs. So instead, we are using material schedules we created in Revit to calculate the quantities of materials in a structural model. Then we are going to transfer the quantities to an internal IMEG database that will multiply them by global warming potential (GWP) factors. This will give us a preliminary high-level assessment of the amount of embodied carbon a structural project is going to emit.” IMEG also will analyze the data for benchmarking purposes, she adds. “When we are able to make this connection with the internal database, the designers and structural engineers will be able to see, in real time, the projected embodied carbon emissions of the quantities of materials that they are designing with,” Laura says. Engineers can then test different framing layouts, slab thicknesses, or material quantities and immediately see the impact on emissions. “Anyone who’s familiar with embodied carbon knows that if you can reduce the quantity of the material that you have, you’re going to reduce the amount of embodied carbon that you have.” Laura says even small specification changes can produce meaningful results at scale. She references a case study involving slab-on-grade concrete design in which reducing slab thickness or lowering concrete strength produced a 10 percent to possibly 20 percent reduction in embodied carbon for that building element. “It’s a great example of low-hanging fruit,” she says. “If you can reduce your quantity and it still performs perfectly for its structural capacities and serviceability requirements, you are going to save carbon and hopefully you’ll save some money too.” Looking ahead, Hagan says innovation in low-carbon materials is crucial for achieving the long-term SE 2050 goal of net zero structural systems. “Innovation has to happen on the material side, then people have to start designing with it, and it has to make it into building codes as an allowable system. That all takes time, and then you have to build the demand for using the material on projects.” Laura’s motivation comes from the engineering mindset itself. “We are problem solvers,” she says. “This is basically a giant problem that we don’t have all the solutions to, but it’s something that if we work together and continue to provide pressure to the industry we can reduce embodied carbon. “People are recognizing that this is important and trying to address it. That’s what keeps me excited and what makes me happy to be doing this work and continuing to push for more every day.” To learn more, listen to part one and part two of this series or read IMEG’s 2026 Whole Carbon Action Plan.

    18 min

  2. May 1

    WCAP Part II: Climbing the mechanical mountain to net zero carbon

    IMEG’s mechanical engineering decarbonization efforts take center stage in this episode, the second in a three-part series on the firm’s 2026 Whole Carbon Action Plan (WCAP). Guest Lindsey Chappelle, an IMEG senior sustainability & energy engineer, explains that the mechanical component of the plan aligns with MEP 2040, the industry-wide mechanical decarbonization initiative. “This is the MEP firms’ commitment to be net zero operational carbon on projects by 2030 and net zero embodied carbon by 2040,” she says. “IMEG is a signatory of MEP 2040 and we have produced our mechanical plan, which has been incorporated into the Whole Carbon Action Plan.” As with the WCAP’s structural and infrastructure initiatives, the plan lays out the goals, tasks, tools, and strategies for reducing and eventually eliminating operational carbon emissions (due to mechanical systems), embodied carbon of the mechanical equipment, and the carbon due to refrigerant leakage associated with certain HVAC systems. “Refrigerants are kind of weird. They don’t really fall into embodied carbon or operational carbon,” Lindsey says. “They’re kind of their own item.” Refrigerants, however, can have a sizeable impact. In one pilot project, leakage accounted for roughly 15% of total MEP-related carbon emissions. While the industry has a firm grasp on how to reduce operational carbon, mechanical engineers face challenges in getting the data needed to address embodied carbon. Among the causes are Revit models that don’t include the number and brand of various types of equipment, and manufacturers who are slow to issue Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for mechanical equipment. These third-party documents, which Chappelle likens to “a nutritional facts label,” are essential for understanding the amount of embodied carbon in any piece of equipment. Unfortunately, as she points out, “a lot of vendors haven’t even heard of an EPD.” To address this issue, IMEG and other firms aligned with MEP 2040 are strongly encouraging manufacturers to provide this information; some firms, including IMEG, are even signaling that future design specifications may require it. Meanwhile, IMEG has efforts underway to integrate design tools with available databases to provide real-time feedback. “Ideally in the future, this is going to be some kind of automated calculation,” Lindsey says, allowing engineers to immediately see the carbon implications of their design choices. Lindsey is excited to be helping to bring clarity to a once opaque aspect of building design. “There's always just been kind of a rule of thumb applied to the embodied carbon of MEP systems, and no one's taken the effort to calculate it. So it's exciting to just have the numbers and be able to back it up with reasonable resources and assumptions, see the overall carbon emissions related to a project, and then be able to make some great design decisions.” To learn more, listen to part one in this series or read IMEG’s 2026 Whole Carbon Action Plan.

    10 min

  3. Apr 15

    Net zero carbon on all projects by 2050? IMEG has a plan

    First in a three-part series. Can an engineering firm reach net zero embodied and operational carbon on all its projects by 2050? If so, what must be accomplished between now and then? Answers to these questions and more are discussed in this episode featuring IMEG’s Director of Sustainability, Adam McMillen. Adam has been working with IMEG’s multidisciplinary Sustainable Design Task Force to issue the firm’s 2026 Whole Carbon Action Plan, or WCAP. The 2026 WCAP is the third iteration of IMEG’s carbon reduction initiatives; the 2024 plan—then a structural-only document—was the first in an annual requirement of the embodied-carbon-focused SE 2050 Commitment Program. Since then IMEG has expanded its plan to include MEP and civil infrastructure initiatives. The 2026 WCAP therefore provides a comprehensive strategy for reducing embodied and operational carbon, continuing to align with SE 2050 as well as with MEP 2040, the mechanical-focused initiative. IMEG’s multidisciplinary plan is unique to the industry. “It's one of our biggest differentiators,” Adam says of IMEG’s approach. “All these initiatives are in sync and everything's speaking the same language. We see the Whole Carbon Action Plan as an opportunity to simplify and streamline things as one solution—one low-carbon approach—that a client can really get behind.” The WCAP is divided into four sections: Education, Report, Reduce, and Advocate—each one delineating individual and multidisciplinary goals and tasks, completed goals and tasks, and the tools that have been or will be created by IMEG to assist its designers in delivering time-efficient, scalable sustainable solutions. While all sections of the WCAP are critical, the first, Educate, provides the means for achieving quick reductions at no additional cost. For example, just by understanding what embodied carbon is and the differing carbon levels of materials can have a big impact. “It’s a huge opportunity just to understand that if I choose recycled content in my steel, that makes a big difference,” says Adam. “Finding five to 10 things per discipline and getting people to “do this, not that” can lead to significant carbon reductions with no cost to the owner.” The firm’s use of artificial intelligence does create a carbon footprint of its own from the energy used to run the computations at data centers. However, IMEG tracks its carbon footprint and has found that the project carbon reductions enabled by its sustainable designs far outweigh the AI carbon footprint of the design process. “For every one ton of carbon that we use by allowing AI to help us make better decisions, we reduce by 10,000 tons the carbon footprint of our projects,” says Adam. How realistic is IMEG’s goal of achieving net zero embodied and operational carbon on all its projects by 2050? “That’s a great question,” says Adam. “Yes, we're taking a risk by saying we're going to reach that. But why not set the framework to try?” To learn more, read IMEG’s 2026 Whole Carbon Action Plan

    20 min

  4. Apr 2

    Urban planning sets the stage for improving communities

    Susan VanBenschoten, IMEG Director of Urban Design, Planning, and Engagement, joins host Joe Payne to discuss the expansive services and expertise of her team.   With 40 years of experience in the community planning and civil infrastructure industry, Susan previously was CEO of FHI Studio, a large planning firm in the Northeast that joined IMEG in 2024, bringing a new service line to the firm. She frames urban planning as the critical foundation upon which successful infrastructure and community outcomes are built. This early-stage focus, she says, defines what a project is before it advances into design, policy, or implementation.   “Urban design and planning is really an umbrella of dozens of different services that are integrated during the planning process,” she explains. These services reside in five major groups: transportation planning, engineering, and design; community planning, land planning, and urban design; environmental planning, resiliency planning, and permitting; landscape architecture; and community engagement—which is, Susan adds, “part and parcel to all the rest of the planning that we do.”   These services are used in various combinations, based on the needs of a project, and operate as an interconnected system. “Planning is very broad and by its nature needs to be multidisciplinary,” Susan says, emphasizing the importance of aligning technical, environmental, and social considerations from the outset. Central to this process is problem definition—often more complex than it initially appears. “You’re really backing up to the very beginning of a problem,” Susan says. Whether addressing congestion, land use, or economic challenges, her team relies on data analysis paired with direct community input. “We really try to use data-driven analysis to understand what the problem really is but also listen to the community so we understand what they see the problem is.”   While traditional public meetings and outreach continue to be conducted, technology has expanded the reach and effectiveness of community engagement. “We still hold meetings. We still do walkabouts—walking through communities and seeing firsthand what some of the issues are.” Technology, however,  has created ways to involve more of the community with virtual meetings, online surveys, and virtual reality, which allows “people to visualize what we are talking about.”   Depending on the project, this process can result in a comprehensive “roadmap,” particularly in large-scale or area-wide planning efforts. Such a roadmap can include dozens of recommendations, ranging from immediate actions to long-term capital investments. Importantly, such plans are not static documents. “Planning documents are living documents,” Susan says, evolving alongside the communities they serve.   Susan and her team are eager to expand their work across the U.S., collaborating with IMEG’s civil infrastructure and MEP teams to bring more value and successful outcomes to clients. “That's the power of having planning and engineering and design all under one roof,” she says. “It's very much in line with IMEG's purpose of shaping and making better communities.” Learn more about IMEG’s Urban Design, Planning, & Engagement services.

    17 min

  5. Jan 30

    From scholarship recipient to designer: ‘Every day I’m learning something new’

    This episode is a conversation with Juan Moreno, an electrical designer at IMEG and a past recipient of the firm’s engineering scholarship program. Juan received one of the thirty $10,000 scholarships awarded when the program was launched in 2023. Born in Miami, Juan spent his childhood and teen years in Colombia. In 2021 he enrolled at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, where one of his older sisters, a UNF graduate, was living at the time. Engineering, he explains, was always a likely path as the profession runs in his family. “My dad is a civil engineer and one of my sisters is also a civil engineer. So I always knew I was going to go the engineering route,” he says. His interest in electrical engineering took root after taking an electrician course while still in Colombia. “It really got me into the electrical side of engineering,” Juan says, adding that electrical courses at UNF sealed the deal. “Every lab in college, it was super fun, because it was hands-on.” Juan learned about the IMEG Scholarship Program in 2022 from a friend who was working as an intern at IMEG’s Jacksonville office. Juan soon applied, saying the process was “pretty straightforward and simple”—though he had little expectation he would be chosen as one of the recipients. The following summer, while back home with his family in Colombia, Juan and his parents learned he had won one of the scholarships. “It was quite the surprise,” he says. “We were all pretty happy.” While there are no strings or promises of employment attached to the IMEG scholarship, after Juan graduated in May of 2025 with a degree in electrical engineering he decided to apply to the firm. He was hired and now works out of IMEG’s office in Broomall, PA, southwest of Philadelphia. A few months later he attended the firm’s Consultancy 101 program—a week-long gathering of newly hired graduates from across the country to introduce them to the firm, its services and markets, technology and innovation initiatives, and to get to know each other and have some fun. After that it was back to the Broomall office, where he has been learning from veteran engineers while working with them on various projects, including a large hotel and casino project in New York. “Every day I get to learn a lot,” Juan says. “I try to connect it with stuff from college, but of course, college is really theoretical and just academic.” “Every day I’m learning something new,” he adds. “I think that’s great.” To date, the IMEG Scholarship Program has awarded 93 scholarships worth $10,000 each to underserved college students studying engineering. Scholarship applications for the 2026-27 academic year are being accepted through March 13. To learn more and apply, visit the IMEG website Careers section.

    11 min

  6. Jan 16

    Planning early is critical for achieving mass timber’s benefits

    Considering using mass timber for the first time? IMEG’s Robert Norton provides key considerations in this episode of The Future Built Smarter. A senior structural engineer working out of IMEG’s San Francisco office, Robert has more than a decade of experience designing with mass timber. He says the material is more than a trend—it transforms how a building is experienced. “Being in a wood building makes you much more comfortable. The wood provides a lot of warmth and it feels homier.”   Mass timber also changes how a building is designed and constructed, he adds. “It becomes part of the architecture.” Unlike steel or concrete buildings, where beams are often hidden behind ceilings, mass timber showcases every structural component. “Everything you do as an engineer is on display. All the connections, all the columns, the beams, the floor systems—they’re visible for people to either enjoy or not enjoy, depending on how well of a job you do.” This emphasis on exposure means early collaboration is critical. “We really want to be as integrated as possible with the architect and engineers, so when we do get drawings from the fabricator for the mass timber panels, it's definitely ready to be installed.” Robert’s team has also developed specialized connections. “Most of those off-the-shelf connections don’t work, so we’ve done a handful of specialized details that create that really seamless look in the building.”   Thanks to its prefabricated panels, mass timber also speeds up construction,. “The mass timber product is assembled in pieces that come to the site and are dropped in place. You’re saving up to 30 percent off your schedule just in the floor system alone.” The material also is highly sustainable, having much less embodied carbon than steel or concrete, he adds. And contrary to widely-held misconceptions, mass timber is fire-retardant. Unlike typical framing lumber, Robert says, “mass timber chars on the outside, forming a protective layer that insulates the core. That allows us to meet one-hour, two-hour, and even higher fire ratings—often without additional fireproofing.”   While upfront costs can be higher with mass timber, early planning can help overcome that, Robert says. “If you have designed for steel or concrete and then ask the team to ‘convert it to mass timber,’ you will almost certainly see a 25 percent to 30 percent cost premium. That’s the wrong way to approach it. To make mass timber competitive, it needs to be part of the project from day one. Doing that, you’re going to find the mass timber prices really drop dramatically.”

    23 min

  7. 10/22/2025

    Small modular reactors: A potential new power source for industrial

    Mike Walsh, IMEG Senior Director of Industrial, joins this episode to discuss small modular reactors (SMRs) and their potential for becoming an integral source of power for manufacturers and industrial campuses. SMRs typically produce 50 to 300 megawatts of power, unlike traditional nuclear plants that generate between 1,000 and 1,500 megawatts. Mike is quick to clarify, however, that the adjective “small” is relative in comparison to traditional reactors. “They’re not small—they’re just smaller,” he says of SMRs. “They’re still large, sophisticated facilities. But their modular construction changes everything.” SMRs work on the same basic principle as traditional reactors: nuclear fission heats water into steam, which drives a turbine to produce electricity. Unlike traditional reactors, the reactor portion is manufactured within a factory—where conditions are controlled and quality assurance is consistent—and are then shipped to a location. They require significant real estate—typically 10 to 100 acres, but still far less than the 250 to 400 acres for a traditional nuclear plant. Their smaller footprint makes SMRs particularly well suited for industrial campuses. And while roughly two-thirds of a traditional nuclear plant’s thermal energy is lost as waste heat, SMRs can capture and reuse that excess energy. “If we can use that heat for industrial processes or building systems, overall efficiency on an industrial site could reach 80 or 90 percent,” Mike says. The 24/7 on-site generation of power also will be highly beneficial to industries as the reliability and strain on the grid continue to worsen, energy costs rise, and owners begin to see high demand factors on utility bills. With few new nuclear plants built in the U.S. since the 1970s, the path forward for SMRs is murky. “No one really knows yet how these will be regulated,” Mike says. “You can’t apply the same rules that were written for massive, one-of-a-kind nuclear facilities. This is new territory.” Economics also is a factor. Early SMRs will be expensive, but Mike draws a parallel to renewable energy’s evolution. “Solar was once prohibitively costly too,” he says. “Then technology improved, production scaled, and prices fell. The same thing will happen here.” The general perception of nuclear power will also need to be overcome. ”It's the not-in-my-backyard syndrome kind of thing,” Mike says. “There are reasons why nuclear accidents happened in the past, but it’s highly improbable that that would happen with these newer facilities and the way they have some passive ability, if they lost all power to the site, to still cool that reactor and not have a meltdown. Despite the challenges, Mike believes nuclear power will be an essential part of a diversified energy mix of the future, which will also include wind, solar, hydro-electric, and, for some time at least, coal. “There are a lot of pieces of the puzzle for how we are going to create energy now and into the future.” Several companies are now building various versions of SMRs. One of them, Kairos Power, is constructing a demonstration reactor in Tennessee; IMEG is collaborating with HDR on the project. The facility is expected to be online in 2027 and will provide essential data on performance, safety, and cost, laying the groundwork for future deployment. Compared to traditional nuclear plants that take decades to bring online, Mike believes that the faster production and startup of SMRs will be key to addressing current and future energy needs. “SMRs are made to help with a problem we have right now, not a problem we're going to have in 30 years.”

    17 min

  8. 09/11/2025

    AI-driven site design: Fast, interactive, and often revealing

    This episode features IMEG civil project manager Matt Pohlhaus in a discussion on how artificial intelligence is transforming site design. Based in the Washington, D.C., metro area, Matt leads land use and civil engineering projects across Maryland and West Virginia. Increasingly, he says, AI is becoming as much a part of his toolkit as CAD software or site surveys. “We use artificial intelligence daily,” Matt explains, describing how it’s woven into tasks both big and small—from communication to design. “If you’ve ever been stuck trying to get some language out the right way, just throwing a few prompts into ChatGPT or something similar” can result in a “very well-worded email” and freeing up time, he says.   On the conceptual side, his team is utilizing AI-driven generative design software. With just a site location and a few inputs, the program quickly produces fully fleshed-out site layouts. “When a client asks, ‘Can we put a 60,000-square-foot grocery store on this site?’ I can now show them in minutes,” Matt says. In the past, that answer might have taken days of drafting and another round of meetings. The ability to test ideas in real time with clients has proven invaluable. “The coolest thing about it is everything updates on the fly,” Matt says. He describes meetings where clients ask to move a building across the site or add a parking garage—what once required rescheduling is now an instant adjustment. “It becomes a lot more conversational,” he says. “I think clients tend to see us more as a partner than just a consultant drawing lines on a screen.” A medical office building project, for example, completely shifted direction during a single meeting. The client had arrived with a looping driveway design they thought was final, but after moving the building within the AI model, the layout quickly evolved into something more straightforward, visible, and cost-efficient. “That was probably a 20-minute conversation,” Matt says. “And the scheme they ended up moving forward with was completely different from what they came in thinking they were going to do.” Another project—an industrial site tied to a rail line—showed off the software’s deeper analytical power. The developer wanted to run railroad tracks into the property, but when Matt layered in topographical data, a problem appeared immediately: the proposed line ran over a 30-foot cliff. “If anyone’s been on a train before, they don’t go up and down hills all that well,” he says. By shifting the entry point half a mile, the team avoided an impossible design and a change that in the past might have taken weeks of back-and-forth.

    18 min
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Ratings & Reviews

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About

Engineers and designers from IMEG, a top 5 U.S. engineering firm, discuss innovative and trend-setting building and infrastructure design with architects, owners, and others in the AEC industry. Topics touch on all market sectors, engineering disciplines, and related services.

Information

  • Creator
    IMEG Corp.
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    69
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2021 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The Future. Built Smarter.