Reflecting on Sustainability Week 2024

Evolving our Approach to Sustainability

Last week, Granite hosted a companywide Sustainability Week to engage our teams with our mission to be the leading provider of sustainable infrastructure solutions. This was our third annual Sustainability Week, and our approach has evolved each year.

Year One: Introducing Sustainability Concepts

In 2022, Sustainability was adopted as a Granite core value, so we focused Sustainability Week on building a foundation of understanding around the fundamental concepts of sustainability. Our teams learned about the importance of stakeholder engagement, the different aspects of sustainability, and how to consider the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit) in daily decision making.

Year Two: Tying Granite’s Work to the SDGs

For the second Sustainability Week, we went into greater detail on sustainability concepts with the theme “Granite and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)." The SDGs are the heart of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, providing “a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” We educated our teams about the SDGs, especially the “core” SDGs that are the focus of Granite’s sustainability strategy. Each day of the week highlighted one SDG, the targets relevant to Granite, and Granite’s contributions to advancing that SDG.

Year Three: Expanding on the SDGs

This year, we continued the theme of “Granite and the SDGs,” expanding to cover the remaining five “core” SDGs that had not been addressed in 2023. Like the previous year, each day we presented an employee educational campaign highlighting one SDG and Granite’s contributions to achieving it. We also engaged our teams with activities including toolbox talks, webinars, leadership conversations, a photo contest, and a trivia game.

2024 Highlights

1.    Market Segment Webinars

Two companywide webinars highlighted segments of our business that contribute directly to building the infrastructure needed to advance the SDGs. For SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), leaders from Layne, a Granite Company, presented about the work their teams do to provide services related to water infrastructure, expertly managing water throughout the full life cycle (supply, treatment, delivery, and maintenance), and delivering potable water to communities. They emphasized that while water may sometimes be underappreciated, its vital importance becomes clear when communities lose access to it, and our services have helped restore access to clean water in these critical circumstances.

For SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), leaders from Granite’s Industrial and Energy Division presented about their unique part of our business. Our Solar team educated our teams about how their work plays a role in the transition to clean energy and discussed opportunities for a growing market. Our Facilities Management team presented on a lesser-known aspect of our work, helping improve energy efficiency in buildings.

2.    Photo Contest

We invited our teams to participate in a Sustainability Week Photo Challenge, asking them to share a photo of themselves or their teams doing something that has a positive social or environmental impact. Highlights from the photo challenge included:

• Collected thin plastics from shipments and other things to recycle or upcycle into “plarn” (plastic yarn), incorporating the material to make useful products like reusable shopping bags or sleeping mats for those in need
• Collecting food for local food banks
• Volunteering to pack food at local food banks
• Volunteering at public gardens
• Volunteering for “Fill the Bus” events for local schools
• Demonstrating how to minimize noise and dust
• Repurposing misprinted papers to take quick notes instead of buying sticky notes
• Composing at home to reduce food waste
• Collecting old and broken electronics for recycling at the office
• Salvaging and recycling demolition materials for use at other construction sites
• Carpooling to work
• Keeping reusable utensils at the office to avoid single-use plastics

3.    Getting Creative

Beyond our companywide competitions, local operations planned additional activities including carpooling challenges, recycling challenges, and bike-to-work days. Sustainability Week provided and opportunity for our teams to get creative and engage in ways that were meaningful to them, and the results were inspiring!

Team Granite Stepped up to the Challenge!

The most remarkable thing about Sustainability Week 2024 was that since people were already familiar with the concept of the SDGs, they were ready to engage more deeply. More people reached out for extra information so that they could have deeper conversations with their teams exploring the daily themes. Foremen wanted to share more with their crews on the ground and explore how they could improve their own job sites. People in offices wanted to organize their own celebrations and challenges. Overall, our teams demonstrated that they are ready to step up to the challenges of sustainability.

We want our people to understand Granite’s role in advancing the goals of sustainable development. When people see clearly how the work they do connects to the bigger picture, and how they are helping to build a more sustainable future, they feel more motivated and engaged to find ways to improve sustainability impacts in their daily work. This year, higher levels of engagement showed that people are inspired by their contributions to sustainability and motivated to bring things to the next level.