Forum discussion

Corporate and Jobsite Sustainability Metrics and Goals

Hi Everyone.  Hope you and your families are all healthy and safe.

We are starting to figure out how we are going to implement the Contractors Commitment at my company, and we're using the opportunity to simultaneously set corporate wide and jobsite metrics and goals for sustainability tracking.

Each year we issue a sustainability snapshot, already looking at about 20 metrics across social, environmental, and economic performance.  But, not all of them have specific goals attached, and many are only indirectly related to the jobsite (e.g. $ value or % of subcontracts awarded to MBE / WBE).

I have 2 requests for you:

1) Would you want to share your corporate targets for sustainability goals.  An example might be Turner's program to reduce jobsite water and GHG's 50% by 2030.   Or, Skanska's 50% carbon reduction by 2030.

2) Would you help me think of "jobsite" metrics worth tracking using the Contractor's Commitment as a guide?  Here is what I have so far:

Carbon - this one is obvious, tracking scope I, II, and III emissions

Health and Wellness – This one is the toughest for me.  Other than safety scores, can someone think of tangible metrics other than IAQ monitoring that would be practical to implement tracking for?  I don't envision us collecting biometrics.  Maybe just feedback surveys with how we score for how people are feeling?  I feel like if we get into things like the number of filters we've changed or the amount of green cleaning chemicals we've bought we're just getting into tracking for the sake of tracking at that point.

Construction Waste – Straightforward – Tons of waste diverted.  But, what about tracking opportunities for innovation - $ value of materials salvaged or something along those lines.

Water – Gallons consumed…gallons saved?  Not sure yet how we would track that in most cases.

Materials - This is an interesting one...using the CC as inspiration: # of subcontractor trainings delivered RE: closing the transparency loop?  # of manufacturers lobbied for improving product disclosure or optimization?  # of transparent materials procured?  

I'd love to hear thoughts and suggestions from this creative and knowledgeable group of experts!  Thanks in advance

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Thu, 01/21/2021 - 17:17

I'll ask this another way - is anyone other than Skanska and Turner tracking annual metrics for jobsite sustainability currently? Anyone other than Skanska, HITT, Webcor tracking corporate sustainability performance and releasing it publicly annually?  Anyone like me tracking and releasing internally?  Does everyone think using the UN SDG's is probably the best guide for corporate metric tracking? Anyone else make big corporate targets? So far I have:
  1. Turner: 50% H20 and GHG jobsite reduction by 2030
  2. Skanska: Zero Carbon by 2045
  3. HITT: Carbon Neutral by 2023 for non-jobsites
  4. DPR: Alreadhy achieved 25% GHG reduction by 2015 
  5. Webcor: 1:1:1 Program: donating 1% of our profits, volunteering 1% of our hours, and 1% in in-kind donations AND Corporate Carbon Commitment focused on embodied carbon
When doing public searches it seems like very few of us track and report sustainability info annually and make it clear to the public.  I figure if we're doing the Contractor's Commitment anyway, it would be good to have some hard metrics to accompany that effort.  Carbon is the most important and straightforward as a metric, but hearing what others are doing would be helpful I think. Thanks! Here is what we track each year currently: Environmental
  1. Renewable energy produced and purchased by our offices
  2. Energy savings achieved from our projects (projected not measured)
  3. Broke small tools salvaged and repurporsed 
  4. CO2 diverted from project savings (projected not measured)
  5. Water saved from projects (projected not measured)
  6. Square footage of certified projects
Social
  1. Number of offices and consecutive years on best places to work lists
  2. # of training hours delivered to employees
  3. % of employees participating in corporate wellness program
  4. # of people participating in blood drives
  5. Safety incident rate against hours worked
  6. High school students mentored
  7. Organizations supported by our Foundation 
  8. Employee retention rate 
Economic
  1. Revenue from green building projects 
  2. $ value of contracts awarded to MBE / WBE
  3. $ value of materials reclaimed and salvaged for reuse
  4. $ value of scholarships awarded to high school students
If you have sustainability plans, reports, frameworks, or goals your company has - and I didn't already note you - and you'd want to share, I'm curious!  Also still curious on thoughts on how we align this with the Contractor's Commitment.  Feel free to email me at sburke@consigli.com if you don't want to share with the whole group.

Wed, 09/08/2021 - 14:35

Good morning all. I am hopping onto one of Steven's existing post.  McGough is just starting to explore ESG reporting and the Contractors Commitment.  Contractors that are doing both corporate and jobsite reporting; what tools are you using? Green Badger? True Carbon?  Are there more programs out there?  Are you connecting your data to the SDG's?  Should I be looking into GRI or CDP for corporate reporting (we will not release annually for now)? Or will I need to use Green Badger/True Carbon and trickle that data up to GRI? Anyone who could help me with a guidance to get us started would be much appreciated.

Wed, 09/08/2021 - 21:14

Columbia's Contractor's Commitment to Sustainable Building Practices (attached) does our best to incorporate the Contractor's Commitment guidelines with other initiatives we implemented or plan to implement. I'll be diving into the Carbon Emissions and Material Selection sections this fall, so I don't have good answers yet, but looking forward to learning with the group as I go. I hope you find Columbia's planned pathway useful. Feedback welcome.

Thu, 09/09/2021 - 14:10

Hi! At Beck we've been reporting annually per CDP guidelines for a couple of years now, and since there is a lot of alignment to the (some) requirements in the Contractor's Commitment, we will be using those tools for tracking. Mostly is looking at expense reports for energy and fuel or surveys for transportation. Although not completely aligned, CDP guidelines might be a good place to start specially to see the definitions of Scope 1, 2 and 3 boundaries.  Has anyone had any experince with the new Greenbadger platform or True Carbon as Jennifer mentioned? I am still not sure they encompass enough of the reporting to implement in a cost efficent way for us. 

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