Sightings | Alumni Profile

Nicholas School Alumnus Santiago Lobeira (MEM '99) Practices Sustainability at Work and at Home

by Lisa M. Dellwo

As an undergraduate, Santiago Lobeira studied environmental law in his hometown of Mexico City. As a Master of Environmental Management student at the Nicholas School, he helped a telecommunications company develop a system for locating and recycling batteries used as backup power sources in far-flung switching stations. Then he worked as an environmental consultant in Chicago before returning to Mexico City to work in environmental permitting for a law firm.

  The story could have ended there: a Nicholas School graduate finding lucrative employment in a job he was well trained for, and in his hometown. Another happy ending.

  Only Lobeira wasn’t satisfied. “I was learning lots about the legal world, but I wasn’t producing anything,” he recalls. What was making him happy was the house he was remodeling. When Lobeira and his wife, Olivia, returned to Mexico City in 2000, as concerned about housing costs as any young couple starting out, they were offered a small outbuilding owned by Olivia’s grandmother. Built in the 1930s as part of a larger estate, it had been used as servant’s quarters and as a warehouse before being abandoned for more than 30 years.

  Working with an architect, the young couple transformed the structure into a comfortable and attractive contemporary home with as many green features as their budget would permit. They replaced the thick south wall with glass that lets in daylight and warms the interior, installed a solar panel on their water heater and built a black room for drying laundry.

  Not everything worked as planned: a system intended to recycle “gray” kitchen water to toilets proved too messy; now the gray water is sent to the garden.

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