Exciting News: ESG for Building Defining Principles Is Live!

This groundbreaking framework will revolutionize how the building industry defines, reports on, and publicizes environmental, social, and governance practices.

After two long years, a dedicated force of 65 building industry professionals, led by Green Builder Media, published the ESG for Building Defining Principles, a framework for integrating Environmental, Social, and Governance strategies into companies across the building and design industry. We rolled it out at IBS/KBIS in Las Vegas this week to lots of fanfare. 

We anticipate that the ESG for Building Defining Principles will serve as an essential guide for stakeholders of all kinds in the building sector. They can use this document to craft strategies and implement initiatives that protect the environment, safeguard their employees, encourage diversity, respect human rights, deliver safe and useful products, defend their customers’ privacy, and create ethical and transparent governance structures.”

Organized into Business Case, Environmental, Social, Governance, Measurement, Compliance, Innovation, and Marketing and Outreach sections, the Defining Principles:

• Define key metrics and align business strategies to use ESG as a risk management, profitability, and sustainability tool.
• Explore how ESG unlocks opportunities throughout the housing sector.
• Outline strategies for climate action, greenhouse gas mitigation, social equity, sustainability governance, and supply chain decarbonization.
• Assess the impact of impending compliance and disclosure requirements.
• Spotlight best practices for performance indicators, progress monitoring, and reporting.

COO of Thrive Home Builders, Bill Rectanus, who serves as the head of the Business Case Committee of the ESG Working Group, believes developing an ESG report gave his company a way to showcase its core beliefs. 

“We believe our ESG report will be a powerful tool to motivate buyers, acquire new financing, secure new development opportunities, and attract new talent, Rectanus says. “Our ESG report provides us with a reporting tool to grow our business and brings our team together, reinforcing the corporate DNA that is so important to who we are and what we build.”

“As we move forward through a decade that demands action and collaboration, it will be even more important to maintain the trust of our employees and our stakeholders while continuing to build trust with new communities,” notes Scott Tew, Vice President of Sustainability & ESG for Trane Technologies. “Operating with a shared understanding of ESG measurements, reporting mechanisms, and frameworks provides the foundation of that trust.”

"This 'defining principles' document is the result of thousands of hours of volunteer work by building industry leaders, including those who have dedicated decades to the cause of managing the man-made effects of climate change on our health and security," says Peter Pheiffer, FAIA, founding principal of BARLEY|PFEIFFER ARCHITECTURE. "Our intention has been to promote exceptional thinking and leadership on a level playing field to enable creative problem-solving in this most critical endeavor."

As the ever-expanding existential threat of global emissions reaches unprecedented levels, the building industry must act. Many business leaders now consider sustainability a moral imperative. The pace at which companies commit to comprehensive ESG strategies is accelerating. ESG for Building is our contribution to our world’s carbon-neutral future.

Click here to learn more about ESG for Building and to download the ESG for Building Defining Principles document.