Adds Hutchinson, "One of the core aspects of our practice is to look at an asset and apply those technologies that maintain or enhance the value of that asset. We're looking to control the amount of energy an asset uses and, where possible, to produce the energy on-site."

From a sustainability standpoint, Waldt says that DWH in the near term will focus on "expanding the breadth of technologies available to provide sustainability services to our clients, with the understanding that the world is changing and things like carbon credits are going to become much more important than they are now. On the development and consulting side, as we look at repositioning assets, we look at something called a competitive location assessment, where we take the location decision matrix and turn it upside down. Instead of drilling down to a site--finding a location that provides a business solution to a company--we actually start with a location and answer the question of what business solutions it provides to the end user."

Given the current state of the market, "thoroughly positioning assets is much more important to their success than it's been before," says Waldt. "You focus on things like cluster strategies that really separate your asset from others that may be competing with it."