Esteban Martinez Lozada’s career in green building has taken him across three continents and involved hundreds of projects. Over the course of 14 years, he has been at the forefront of sustainable design, working to create high-performance buildings that promote energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. With a lifelong commitment to learning and growing professionally, Martinez has served the building industry as a sustainability consultant, energy modeler and commissioning agent.

Green beginnings

At the University of Los Andes in Colombia, Martinez embarked on a challenging journey to pursue dual degrees in architecture and engineering. Studying both the technical and creative sides of the building industry have proven “extremely helpful as a professional working in sustainability,” Martinez reflects. It was his thesis project on urban renovation, however, that led him to discover his ultimate passion for sustainability. After his project was selected for the 2007 Archiprix International, a global biennial exhibition of architecture school projects, Martinez was invited to attend a life-altering green building lecture in Rotterdam, his first real connection to urban sustainable design.

A man in a gray sweatshirt and jeans stands outside a glass building, with ferns surrounding it. — Esteban Martinez Lozada outside the Green Loop offices in Medellin. Photo courtesy of Martinez.

Upon his return to Colombia from the Netherlands, Martinez was inspired to set into motion a sustainability company—a groundbreaking step given that in 2008, as he explains, there was scarce green building knowledge available in the country. With Martinez as its co-founder, Green Loop launched officially in 2009.

Concurrently, Martinez became part of the founding members of Consejo Colombiano de Construcción Sostenible, the Colombia Green Building Council. Although the green building world was emerging, “we recognized that sustainability was and is the future, and that it is an initiative we should support.”

Martinez intuitively recognized the organization aligned with what he believed should be happening in the building market. "We decided to bet on Consejo Colombiano de Construcción Sostenible and support the creation of this movement.”

Building a sustainable future

Martinez’s priority was becoming knowledgeable in the green building industry. Through early research on sustainable building, he stumbled upon LEED and soon earned his LEED Green Associate credential. Over the next two years, Martinez supplemented his technical knowledge with sustainable design studies, and in fall 2010, his company was awarded its first project, Ruta N in Medellin, which was one of the first public projects to attain LEED certification in Colombia. At a little under 200,000 square feet, it encompassed laboratories, offices and a few other special areas, says Martinez.

During this time, he began the Master of Design Studies in Sustainable Design program at Boston Architectural College while simultaneously running his company. He further cemented his knowledge by pursuing the LEED AP BD+C and O+M credentials, followed by the Certified Building Commissioning Professional credential from the Association of Energy Engineers.

Martinez’s motivation to keep learning stems from his view of this journey as a succession of knowledge that should be shared with others. “I have kept the discipline to continue studying so that I can be a reliable source of knowledge for all of my teams,” he explains.

Martinez has since become a LEED Green Rater, WELL AP, and Living Future Ambassador. As the green building industry continues evolving rapidly, Martinez vows to “keep on the road of innovation, studying and sharing that knowledge.”

“Part of my role is to figure out what the market is looking for, so that I can educate my staff and then pass this information onto the clients,” he says.

Sowing seeds of change

Today, Green Loop has grown to a team of 42 engineers with locations in Bogotá and Medellín, Colombia, as well as Miami, Florida, all working on diverse roles in project management, energy modeling and commissioning with Martinez as their sustainability director. His approach to running the firm has organically nurtured sustainability-driven professionals. In his early years at Green Loop, while working on the frontlines of design and engineering, he says, “I was simultaneously teaching my employees about these measures to help them support me in the green building cause.”

Martinez’s self-motivated journey is also reflected in the diversity of certification programs that Green Loop engages in. These include LEED for Building Design and Construction, Interior Design and Construction, and Operations and Maintenance; LEED for Cities and Communities; WELL certification; and Fitwel. Green Loop’s reach has extended internationally to additional programs including EDGE and CASA.

“We started the green building movement in Colombia and, along with other companies, brought these green building rating systems to the country that no one had known about before,” says Martinez. Green Loop became one of the first companies to consistently deliver certified green building projects throughout Colombia.

A large group of employees smiles at the camera, wearing matching sweatshirts. — Green Loop employees at the Green Loop offices in Medellin. Photo courtesy of Esteban Martinez Lozada.

Martinez has also expanded his impact beyond commercial projects, thanks to the LEED residential rating system and the CASA and EDGE programs, which allow him to impart green building knowledge to the residential market. Consequently, “Colombia became one of the first countries to start LEED residential projects, once LEED opened up its doors to the international market for this rating system,” explains Martinez .

Despite having certified 76 LEED projects and supervised over 400 projects, Martinez believes Green Loop’s work is far from finished. He is currently running over 170 projects under various green building rating systems. His company is working on international projects pursuing LEED certification, including those in Central America, South America and the United States.

Even with a diverse portfolio of work, Martinez continues taking on projects that blaze the trail of innovation to grow his knowledge base. His current project Future Seeds, a global genebank and laboratory promoting crop diversity and preservation, has been a challenging endeavor. Its goals of achieving LEED Platinum, LEED Zero and the Living Building Challenge, paired with the laboratory’s unique operational requirements, yield learning lessons.

“We have never faced a project that wanted to be both net zero and regenerative,” he says. “We knew that we were pushing the limits of sustainable design when we took on this project.”

Communicating sustainability

To actively foster the growth of the green building movement, Martinez is dedicated to dispelling industry misconceptions.

One means is to demonstrate the applicability of sustainability on different scales.“There are ways to achieve sustainability on smaller projects such as privately owned homes. You don’t need a big budget; it only takes time and tools to deliver the results,” explains Martinez. “I want to show everyone that sustainability doesn’t have to cost you more.”

Martinez also strives to convey that sustainability encompasses tangible benefits like improved indoor air quality. As such, Green Loop has used a bioclimatic design approach, emphasizing passive design strategies like natural ventilation in many of its projects. “My inspiration comes from simply trying to create a better and more responsible world,” he says. “I truly believe that if we want to thrive in this world, we need to do our part to mitigate the effects of climate change.”

A young child, man and woman smile at the camera in a selfie on a streetscape. — Esteban Martinez Lozada with his wife and daughter in Filandia, Quindo, Colombia. Photo courtesy of Martinez.

In 2020, Martinez was awarded the LEED Fellow distinction, due to his significant contributions to the green building industry. He has imparted his expertise to over 5,000 individuals through various speaking engagements. As the previous national director for the educational committee of the Colombia GBC, Martinez organized and helped teach its sustainability curriculum to green building professionals.

More than 460 professionals have attended his LEED credential exam preparation courses, including Maria Alex Cardona, head of business development for GBCI in Colombia. “I believe that Esteban's greatest strengths in the green building industry are his deep principles in transforming people's lives as his main purpose,” explains Cardona.

Since 2018, Martinez has worked closely with Cardona to strengthen the relationship of GBCI with Colombia by serving as a technical resource for projects undergoing the LEED review process. He is also “facilitating technical conversations to unlock barriers and identify alternative compliance paths, not only for projects under his management, but also for those of the whole Latin American region,” explains Cardona. She asserts that Martinez has demonstrated GBCI’s willingness to engage with the market and understand its needs, so that tools like LEED can be adopted to achieve green goals.

Looking toward what’s next

Today, Martinez is involved with Colombia GBC’s regional committee, to strengthen the relationship of Colombia GBC with the national green building market. He also continues to serve as a resident green building expert, providing technical support to facilitate the implementation of green building rating systems in Colombia.

He is currently passionate about environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting, as well as regenerative design, to continue improving decarbonization efforts. “We need to move away from only addressing sustainability as a depletion of resources, and think more about giving back to nature what we have taken for centuries,” he says.

Martinez plans to continue sharing his passion with others. “We are a small tribe of people striving for sustainability—we need advocacy, we need to spread the word, we need to tell people,” he insists.

As such, he hopes to continue extending global influence. “I would like to reach out to other countries. Latin America is a developing market, and we need more people engaging in sustainability there to elevate its market.”

His leadership, expertise and passion for sustainability have inspired countless others to follow in his footsteps and make a positive impact in the built environment, but he’s not content to rest on his laurels. “Over these 14 years, by no means do I consider myself an expert—I believe I understand a good part of green building, but there is a lot more to learn. I will be studying for the rest of my life, ”he says.

LEED Fellow: Esteban Martinez Lozada