Building bridges

Photo credit Diana Rothery

Skanska USA expresses its corporate commitment to the triple bottom line through its Sustainability Agenda. The following is the final article in our five-part series exploring how Skanska is approaching the triple bottom line for the good of its clients, its respective businesses and for the good of the places we live, play and work. You can read parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 here.

Imagine being back in elementary school, picking kickball teams at recess. If you’re picking from just a couple of classes, you might put together a nice team. If you pick from the whole school, with so many more people to choose, you will probably pick an even better team.

That kind of inclusiveness is at the heart of efforts that are becoming more common in construction to recruit more subcontractors. The true benefit is that by bringing more local partners into the always-local business of construction, contractors have the ability to promote the long term sustainability of their communities.

When some contractors say sustainability, they usually roll out a presentation of all of their LEED buildings. I always want to know who built these projects: who were the folks swinging the hammers?

A contractor that is committed to sustainability has to consider how it engages the local subcontractor community. Are we expanding our pool of qualified subcontractors in our areas? How aggressively do we recruit new subs when we enter new areas? What about certified disadvantaged business enterprises? Are we giving them a fair shake?

We meet a lot of small businesses that need the types of work the large prime contractors have in their markets. For many of these smaller subs, though, the world of big contracting presents a tough situation: the need for the work, but the inability to break into that work, not knowing what is required.

Our response to that hasn’t been to show them a textbook. Instead, we take the time and energy to train subs in all of our markets on how they can...continue reading.