We build for a better society
Sustainability
Partnerships within sustainability
A future we all shape together
Healthier and more resilient places for all
Realizing our vision will take determination and bold thinking. Within the challenges lie great opportunities, and we will continue to work with customers and partners to capture them. Together, we can create new possibilities— designing climate-smart solutions that open fresh avenues of prosperity and drive business success.
See our work
Climate
Resilience
Responsibility
Our sustainable strategy
Understanding the needs and demands of an ever changing future
Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
Goal 8
08
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.
Goal 9
09
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
Goal 5
05
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
We actively support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their subtargets.
We’ve identified these seven relevant SDGs:
Ranked among ENR’s Top Green Contractors from the start
248 LEED® projects completed, over 43 million-SF
Platinum member of the U.S. Green Building Council
Skanska ranked #17 on Fortune’s annual “Change the World list in 2020”
First U.S. contractor to achieve ISO 14001 certification
Keystone member of the international WELL Building Institute
Charter member of the institute for Sustainable Infrastructure
Fitwel Champion
U.S. Sustainability Statistics
To shape a future in which we and future generations will want to live, we will leverage our strengths as a business: developing people to their fullest potential, deepening our knowledge, continually improving performance.
Delivering a sustainable impact to the world
Harnessing our strategic strengths
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Sustainable impact
Innovative solutions
Continuous improvement
Customer-first mindset
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
Goal 12
12
Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
Goal 11
11
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
Goal 13
13
Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.
Goal 17
17
Transformative solutions for a climate-smart built environment
Creating transformative solutions drives our business forward and enables our customers to succeed in fulfilling their sustainability goals. These solutions need to be low in carbon, circular, smart and sustainable. And identifying these solutions involves education, insight and learning. We partner to share knowledge and to develop and innovate net-zero solutions for the built environment. Our goal is to transition to low-carbon construction across all our projects and ultimately achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2045.
Many of today’s buildings and spaces are not designed for the challenges faced by modern society – challenges such as extreme weather, air pollution, energy shortages and water scarcity. They also may not be designed for changes in social patterns, such as rising urban population density and changing living habits. Our vision of offering healthy, inclusive and resilient places involves forming partnerships with local communities to cultivate social value, designed to meet long-term needs. We combine social sustainability and environmental perspectives to leverage the sustainability impact we deliver through our business. We envision a world where sustainability is simply built into living–and a future filled with healthier, more sustainable, more resilient urban spaces. Places shaped together–for all.
Healthy resilient places for all
Being a responsible business, inside and out, means having a strong and committed health and safety approach that protects lives and people’ well-being. It means using our full potential by embracing diversity and creating inclusive environments. It means acting fairly and ethically, exercising integrity in all decisions, and being a trusted business partner with respect to the supply chain. It means operating with care for local environments and communities. As a responsible business, we are guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Global Compact principles. We are transparent about our sustainability direction and disclose our performance.
A responsible business for people and planet
Innovate + Collaborate + Accelerate = Together
In the News
Sustainability Leaders
Thought Leadership
EC3 Tool
Our Sustainability Work
Sustainability Plan
Our Projects
Building Responsibly
We seek low-carbon solutions and build for the future, today.
Our longtime leadership in sustainable construction and development provides us with the expertise to help our customers deliver on their leading edge environmental and healthy building ambitions. By leveraging our national and international experience, we can efficiently use natural resources and be a better neighbor in our communities. Green, healthy building is good business and critical to protecting our planet and the health and wellbeing of end users.
CUNY, Advanced Science and Research Center
New York, NY
Used FSC-certified wood and successfully enrolled in the Construction for a Livable City program. Includes a heat recovery system that captures heat leaving the building and recirculates it to conserve energy.
This project is a sustainability-focused facility supporting Georgia Tech's overarching goal to demonstrate a viable net-positive "urban" sustainable building in the Southeast.
Atlanta, GA
The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design
Boston, MA
101 Seaport
The building promotes healthy indoor working environments and incorporates environmentally responsible materials. 101 Seaport also manages stormwater onsite; reduces the heat-island effect in downtown Boston; is flexible; and designed to have a long, useful life span.
First NYC museum to obtain LEED certification. Green features include geothermal wells, photovoltaic panels, rainwater collection and a green roof. At least 20 percent of building materials were manufactured, extracted or harvested regionally.
Skanska's office in the Empire State Building features energy-efficient systems that improve indoor air quality and water-saving fixtures that use 40 percent less water than the baseline 1992 Energy Act.
LEED Gold certification by executing sustainable design elements, such as installing 245 high-efficiency solar roof panels to supplement conventional energy use.
Newark, NJ
SJP Properties, Two Riverfront Center
U.S. Green Building Council Envision (for Infrastructure) LEED® BD+C: New Construction Envision Platinum LEED® Gold
U.S. Green Building Council LEED® BD+C: New Construction LEED® Silver
U.S. Green Building Council LEED® BD+C: New Construction LEED® Gold
Notable features include bicycle storage and showers for commuting riders, as well as a green roof and two planted terraces.
Cantilevered construction fence covered in noise-mitigating blankets, portable noise barriers and equipment mufflers to minimize distubance to the surrounding neighborhood.
Queens, NY
LaGuardia Airport, Terminal B Redevelopment
Moynihan Train Hall
Albany, NY
State University of New York Albany New Business School
Brooklyn, NY
New York University, School of Law
New York University, 370 Jay Street
Columbia University, The Forum
Reducing Carbon Impact
Learn more about how EC3 can help you reduce your embodied carbon footprint here.
During the preconstruction phase of our ground-up projects, we provide the range of embodied carbon footprint for the top 4 emitters of carbon–concrete, rebar, structural steel and asphalt.
Learn More
Pennington, NJ
Capital Health, Hopewell Replacement Hospital
New Hyde Park, NY
Northwell Health, CFAM Monter Cancer Center, Phase II
One of few hospitals in the country to have achieved Gold level recognition. Includes water efficient landscaping, water use reduction, recycled 90 percent of construction trash and debris, and light pollution reduction.
56,000-SF Delivered in 2008 LEED Silver–Awarded in 2009
U.S. Green Building Council LEED® BD+C: Core & Shell LEED® Platinum
Includes open spaces, natural light, a green roof, a fully restored façade and a variety of other sustainable features, making it one of only four LEED v.2009 Platinum-certified core and shell projects in NYC.
U.S. Green Building Council LEED® New Construction LEED® Platinum
U.S. Green Building Council LEED® Commercial Interiors LEED® Platinum
U.S. Green Building Council LEED® BD+C: Core & Shell LEED® Gold Achieved
U.S. Green Building Council LEED® New Construction LEED® Silver
The train hall is the first in the world to achieve LEED for Transit.
The exterior of the building contains precast concrete panels and angled fins that capitalize on natural daylight and reduce glare.
The airport uses solar water heaters, large skylights, wall-to-ceiling windows, and other efficient systems and fixtures to reduce energy use.
U.S. Green Building Council LEED® New Construction LEED® Gold
Living Building Challenge v3.1
LEED® Platinum
Nashville, TN
501 Commerce
Houston, TX
Bank of America Tower
Two Drydock
60 percent of the total building materials have been extracted processed and manufactured within 500 miles of the project site.
U.S. Green Building Council LEED® Core & Shell LEED® Silver
25-story 375,000-SF Office 454,828-SF Parking Delivered in 2020 LEED Silver
35-story office + retail 780,000-SF Office 35,000-SF Retail Delivered in 2019 Certified LEED Platinum V4
13-story office + retail 227,000-SF office 7,000-SF retail Delivered in 2020 Certified LEED Gold
12-story residential building 326 units with amenity spaces Below-grade parking Delivered in 2019 LEED Silver
26-story office + retail 541,000 SF office 11,000 SF retail Under Construction Targeting LEED Platinum WiredScore Gold + Smart Score
4-story office 50,148 SF Under Construction Targeting LEED Platinum WiredScore Platinum certified Targeting Fitwel Certification
Washington, DC
Tyber Place
Bellevue, WA
The Eight
Los Angeles, CA
9000 Wilshire
Going beyond sustainable operations
As demand for sustainability rises, carbon-efficient building systems are becoming increasingly common.
Currently, the industry is focused on reducing carbon emissions from buildings once they are operational; however, we see an opportunity to do more. Consideration of a building’s emissions and life-cycle costs must expand beyond simple energy efficiency to include carbon produced during construction. The extraction, manufacture and transportation of building materials create varying amounts of carbon emissions, which, when combined, are classified as embodied carbon.
Skanska has been pioneering sustainable building techniques since 1995, and the EC3 tool is the next step on our journey toward a low carbon future.
The EC3 tool identifies sustainable building materials in preconstruction and helps teams reduce a building’s overall carbon footprint.
The EC3 tool allows our team to fully evaluate the material components of a project for cost and embodied carbon.
Measuring overall embodied carbon footprint
Here is an example of how the EC3 tool shows a building’s overall embodied carbon footprint and the range of improvement and reduction possible at both the building level and material category scale.
The light colored areas on each vertical bar indicate the potential emissions reductions available per each building scope and material for a project. This analysis can be completed for any project in any city, and the data becomes more detailed as the project progresses through preconstruction when material quantities and specifications become more certain.
Our actions to reduce carbon emissions
We can review the project by overall footprint or by specific components, providing a comprehensive overview of your options.
We engage with material suppliers to seek out products with lower carbon intensity, often achieving embodied carbon reductions of 10%–30%.
Innovative Design
Digitalization
Low-carbon materials
Circularity
Renewable energy
Skanska leverages technology to plan for prefabrication, industrialization and waste reduction so that constructability challenges can be understood and solutions can be developed and acted upon quickly.
Electrification
Energy efficient buildings
Skanska considers a building’s position, orientation, shape and other features that can minimize environmental impact. We work with clients and design teams to evaluate early design decisions that can reduce life-cycle carbon emissions that affect the adaptive reuse of a building, the structure/mechanical system, building envelope selection, etc.
Skanska uses tools and processes to select and procure the best versions of products with the lowest impact. We use the EC3 tool to quantify embodied carbon emissions and inform smart procurement of low carbon materials. Skanska also has an in-house methodology to quantify and reduce the emissions expended to deliver and install materials on the jobsite.
Low Carbon
Skanska offices are on the waitlist for the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning and are monitoring the market for the all-electric telehandler forklifts. Skanska will work with key trades such as earthwork, demolition, drilling and shoring to evaluate all-electric equipment options. By moving away from combustion fuels to electric power for construction equipment, heating and cooling, Skanska can reduce carbon emissions, air pollution, noise pollution, and other environmental hazards associated with petroleum spills and storage on site.
We purchase local utility renewable energy credits for temporary construction power. Construction equipment powered by renewables can be deployed, such as solar light towers and generators. By using onsite or grid generated green energy for a project’s needs during construction and operation, Skanska will reduce building life cycle carbon emissions, as well as improve the air quality on the jobsite and for surrounding communities.
Renewable Energy
Skanska performs salvage assessments before existing building demolition (if applicable) to identify salvage opportunities. We work with local waste haulers to identify community-based circular waste solutions for deconstruction, disassembly, recycling, donations and repurposing.
By balancing life-cycle costs of building improvements with acceptable first costs that reduce energy use, our clients won’t be sacrificing building performance or occupant comfort.
Energy Efficient Buildings
Testimonials about the EC3 Tool
“You’re setting targets during design, you’re using the supply chain data to understand the range of emissions that are possible per material category, and you’re specifying based on trying to get the lower carbon option that meets your specs, then you’re procuring based on that.”
Potential emission reduction
Carbon footprint for specific material
Building’s overall carbon footprint
—Stacy Smedley, Executive director of Building Transparency
"EC3 is a prime example of how we think about leveraging technology to create data-driven decisions and really support our mission to become carbon negative."
—Katie Ross, Senior Sustainability program manager for Microsoft’s real estate and facilities team
"We can really put some language into the specs before we go out to the market, and basically send a signal to that says we’re not just considering price and schedule, but we’re also putting carbon intensity alongside that in our procurement process."
—Sarah King, Sustainability Director for Skanska USA Commercial Development
Leaders
Leading the way
Skanska’s industry-leaders within sustainability.
As a company that cares for life, we recognize the current climate crisis and, more importantly, the responsibility of our industry to take action. Skanska is leading the charge and has set an ambitious target to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 in our own operations and across our entire value chain.
Robert Luckey
Myrrh Caplan, LEED Fellow
Sr. Vice President, Preconstruction Metro NY
Vice President, Sustainability
Learn more about sustainability
2022 Sustainability Report
Senior Sustainability Engineer Metro NY
Thomas Fitzgerald, ENV SP
Latest Articles
Read Article
Skanska has been named a “Climate Leader” in Europe as the result of a joint initiative between the Financial Times...
Skanska named an international leader in sustainability
The tool can be used to calculate the embodied carbon of key materials that account for upward of 70% of a building’s...
Microsoft and Skanska are using this free tool to dramatically cut their carbon
Skanska USA Building will invest in providing initial embodied carbon assessments on every new construction project...
Skanska USA Building Expands Embodied Carbon Assessments to Projects Nationwide
Last year, Skanska Group announced a long-term target of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2045. To accompany...
Piloting our USB carbon roadmap: A Q&A with Executive Assistant Evelyn Hennessy
On the campus of US university Georgia Tech, a ‘living building’ has been constructed that generates more electricity than it....
A 'living building' in the heart of Georgia Tech’s university campus
Skanska USA Building (USB) will plant 1,400 trees to reduce its carbon footprint. This effort is part of Forterra’s Evergreen...
Skanska begins two-year tree-planting effort to offset carbon emissions
Reducing carbon emissions from building operations has been a policy and industry goal for decades, but only in recent years...
Construction industry hones in on carbon reduction to build greener
In this episode of the Construction Record Podcast, Skanska senior project manager Robert Reid discusses the New York....
The Construction Record Podcast: Episode 193: NYC’s East Midtown Greenway
Shaping Sustainable Places is a podcast about climate-smart built environments, the construction and development industry, and their impact on the places we live. In each episode, we’ll be speaking with industry leaders and other champions of change to explore innovative solutions to real challenges.
Shaping Sustainable Places Podcast
Webinars
Webinars are each an hour long and were recorded for your convenience covering the following topics:
Demystifying Low Carbon Considerations in Construction
Learn the drivers influencing low carbon considerations in construction.
Skanska and JB&B Webinar–Part 1
Discussion on materials, tools and strategies to identify embodied carbon solutions.
Skanska and JB&B Webinar–Part 2
Learn about the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool, developed in partnership with the Carbon Leadership Forum, that allows owners along with their design and construction teams to compare emissions and embodied carbon levels for proposed project materials in real time.
Skanska Webinar–Part 4
Learn why thinking beyond a singular bottom line for life-cycle considerations is critical.
Skanska and JB&B Webinar–Part 3
