Thornton Tomasetti Acquires Green Building Consulting Firm

NEW YORK — International engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti acquired Fore Solutions, a Portland, Maine-based green building consulting firm, in an effort to expand its sustainability consulting services and integrate green objectives across all its practices.

Fore Solution’s principal and founder Gunnar Hubbard will become a principal at Thornton Tomasetti and lead the new Building Sustainability practice.

Former Director of Sustainability Wolfgang Werner will serve as vice president and head of the practice’s East U.S. region.

The Fore Solutions team will remain based in Portland, Maine, which is now a Thornton Tomasetti office within the East U.S. region.

By 2015, about half of new construction in the United States is expected to incorporate some measure of sustainability, according to a statement from Thornton Tomasetti, which focuses on building skin, property loss consulting, building performance, structure and construction support services.

“The phenomenal growth of the green building movement in recent years means that sustainability is here to stay,” the statement said. “The addition of Fore Solutions gives Thornton Tomasetti expanded experience and an established brand in the green building world.”

Thornton Tomasetti first created its Green Building Strategy Team in 2007 and a sustainability department in 2010, offering sustainability services and performing sustainability project work.

“Sustainability consulting has matured from an ‘add-on,’ or post-design service, to becoming embedded at the start of the design cycle,” a statement from the firm said. “Today it plays a crucial role throughout the building life cycle in meeting the demand for high-performance buildings. The addition of Fore Solutions to the Thornton Tomasetti platform allows us to elevate our sustainability services to the practice level to better address our clients’ energy and environmental performance requirements.”