Data center development moves fast, and environmental risk is one of the biggest threats to that timeline. Community opposition, water-use scrutiny, and permitting delays can stall projects and inflate budgets. RES helps data center developers turn that risk into a competitive advantage with nature-based solutions that accelerate approvals, build community trust, and lower long-term costs.

Our approach centers on three strategies: Ecological Site Solutions that replace conventional turf and landscaping with native systems, bioswales, and natural stormwater management to reduce cooling loads and operating costs; Volumetric Water Benefits that replenish more water to the watershed than operations consume, supporting water-positive commitments; and environmental mitigation that offsets unavoidable impacts to wetlands, streams, and species habitat while keeping permits on schedule.

Applied early, before the first permit is filed, these solutions help hyperscale and campus-scale projects shorten timelines, strengthen sustainability and ESG reporting, and earn the local trust that keeps development on track.

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RES is a national leader in nature-based solutions, delivering ecological restoration, water resources mitigation, and water quality offsets for many federal agencies. As both prime and subcontractor, RES has completed projects supporting federal infrastructure, flood resiliency, and post-hurricane recovery.

RES collaborates with agencies to enhance climate resiliency and adaptation plans through nature-based approaches. These efforts include protecting coastal assets such as ports and naval facilities with living shorelines, improving water quality through green infrastructure, and promoting species conservation through habitat restoration. Projects align with specific agency mandates, such as NEPA and Integrated Natural Resource Management Plans, and often involve mission-driven terrestrial and aquatic habitat restoration through fish passage and dam removal initiatives.

RES has extensive federal contracting experience with a range of clients, including the Department of Defense (NAVFAC, Air Force, Army), Environmental Protection Agency, General Services Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Park Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, US Army Corps of Engineers, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and US Forest Service.

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Large-scale commercial development—from manufacturing and data centers to big box retail, warehouses, and life sciences facilities—is essential to thriving economies. As development accelerates in growing regions, these projects often occupy large footprints with significant impervious surfaces, parking, and infrastructure corridors. They typically trigger additional development, such as roads and supporting utilities.

These activities require careful consideration of ecological impacts. Large facility footprints often impact adjacent wetlands, streams, and sensitive habitats. Stormwater runoff, water consumption, and habitat fragmentation add regulatory complexity: projects must navigate Clean Water Act permitting, Endangered Species Act consultation, and state water quality standards—all while meeting tight construction timelines.

RES supports commercial, manufacturing, and life sciences developers by providing reliable, cost-effective ecological and water resource solutions that accelerate permitting and reduce long-term compliance costs. We design mitigation strategies tailored to project scale and geography—offsetting unavoidable impacts while supporting sustainability goals and phased facility expansion.

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Increased regulatory agency scrutiny of oil and gas operators developing U.S. onshore resources has heightened operator awareness of regulatory and permitting processes. Company executives, EH&S managers, and resource play and asset managers alike face wide-ranging perceptions of the industry’s view of environmental issues. The oil and gas industry is subject to various environmental regulations, like the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.

Pipelines carry their own challenges. Oil, gas, and other pipelines are typically constructed in linear corridors with permanent and temporary disturbances to the built environment. These projects often optimize their alignment to minimize impacts, but compensatory mitigation is sometimes required to comply with regulations addressing unavoidable impacts on wetlands, streams, and habitats of threatened and endangered species. Because they span large geographic areas and are regulated by numerous agencies, these projects are highly visible and increasingly scrutinized.

RES provides project impact analyses to understand and offset natural resource impacts and streamline the permitting process for project development activities. As the energy industry’s leading supplier of ecological solutions, RES addresses the various mitigation requirements associated with project development as well as the construction and O&M of pipelines.

Generating and delivering electric power, gas, water, and other resources to growing communities means protecting current assets and carefully planning system expansions.

New projects often have linear corridor impacts and intersect wetlands and waterbodies. Ecological impacts often require compensatory wetland, stream, and habitat offsets, also called mitigation, to enable compliance. Existing infrastructure may need asset protection in the form of coastal resiliency or storm surge mitigation.

RES is the nation’s leader in supplying ecological solutions for linear projects such as transmission line expansions, capacity improvements, and O&M activities.

Wind and solar power projects cover native landscapes, producing sustainable energy to meet growing demand.

As the development of these renewable facilities increases, they face increasing scrutiny around vegetation management. In addition, renewable project footprints often have unavoidable impacts to wetlands, and their vertical, rotating components may affect some endangered, threatened, or protected species. In addition to these facilities, these projects often require appurtenant transmission infrastructure, requiring the development of additional corridors.

Whether supporting pollinator habitat or mitigating unavoidable impacts on wetlands and species, RES ecological solutions match the scale required for regulatory compliance with predictable, successful ecological outcomes.

Many state and local governments are confronting the growing challenges created by stormwater-related issues, aging infrastructure, and fiscal uncertainty. Whether complying with the Clean Water Act’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) or addressing Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) issues, public sector entities face increased scrutiny while managing limited funding. Public demand is also growing for green infrastructure and its broad benefits.

RES utilizes nature-based Best Management Practices (BMPs) and cutting-edge technology for capital projects and pollution reductions with reduced regulatory and financial risks to your municipality. We are uniquely structured to meet municipal separate stormwater sewer system (MS4) and TMDL permit requirements and goals through green infrastructure, stream restoration, and proven BMPs. This structure allows for the elimination of multiple RFP processes and a sole-provider relationship that benefits the community and those it serves.

Across the U.S., infrastructure investments are increasingly needed to address added capacity, state of good repair, and safety. Governmental entities are making significant investments in our infrastructure, but must often balance funding with community needs and the environment.

As a result of this important and necessary development, these infrastructure improvements often affect critical lands and increase stormwater runoff, leading to more pollutants entering our country’s wetlands and waterways. Additionally, forest clearing for linear corridors may impact endangered or threatened species.

Compliance with state and federal regulations includes using environmental offsets that rely on natural, land-based solutions—such as riparian buffers, wetland restoration, or forest conservation—within the watershed where the infrastructure is developed.

RES provides ecological restoration and water resource solutions to address these challenges.