We build for a better society
Sustainability
Partnerships within sustainability
In the News
Sustainability Leaders
EC3 Tool
Our Sustainability Work
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
Sustainability Plan
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
Skanska signed on as signatory to America Is All In, reaffirming our commitment to address climate change
Skanska ranked #17 on Fortune’s annual “Change the World list in 2020”
First U.S. contractor to achieve ISO 14001 certification
Group-wide carbon reduction target: net zero emissions by 2045 with a 70 percent reduction by 2030
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
+
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
Skanska co-created AGC task force to spearhead decarbonization efforts in construction
Our projects
Building responsibly
Our experience, innovative mindset and commitment to achieve a regenerative built environment means we are building 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. Sustainable, healthy building is good business and critical to protecting our planet and the health and wellbeing of end users.
121 Seaport
Boston, MA
17-story office + retail 400,000 SF office 58,000 SF retail Delivered in 2018 Certified LEED Platinum
13-story office + retail 227,000-SF office 7,000 SF retail Delivered in 2020 Certified LEED Gold
Two Drydock
The Harlo
17-story residential + retail 212 units 7,100-SF retail Delivered in 2017 Certified LEED Gold
36,978-SF Living Building Challenge Winner Delivered in 2019 LEED Platinum v4
35-story office + retail 780,000 SF office 35,000 SF retail Delivered in 2019 Certified LEED Platinum V4
387,000 RSF Total 387,000 RSF Office 7,000 RSF Retail Under Construction WiredScore Platinum certified Targeting WELL Targeting LEED® Platinum
Atlanta, GA
The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design
Houston, TX
1550 on the Green
17-story residential + retail 346 units 25,000 SF retail Delivered in 2015 Certified LEED Gold
686,000 SF office 24,000 SF open plaza, including 17,000 SF retail LEED Platinum Delivered in 2019
60,000-SF office Under rennovation/construction On track to reach Net Zero Certified LEED Platinum
Delivered in 2022 Envision Platinum certification
$1.7 billion project 860,000-SF modernization Nine-acre mass timber roof Under construction Targeting LEED Gold
25-story 372,000 SF Office 454,828 SF Parking Delivered in 2020 LEED Silver
Watermark Seaport
Seattle, WA
2 + U
Washington, DC
Confidential Office Building
Los Angeles, CA
Sixth Street Viaduct Replacement
Portland, OR
Portland International Airport, Terminal Core Redevelopment
Nashville, TN
501 Commerce
Reducing carbon impact
Learn more about how EC3 can help you reduce your embodied carbon footprint here.
Our USA Commercial Development team has been using the EC3 tool on all our projects in design and construction since 2020. Our USA Building team has been using the EC3 tool on every new construction project over 53,000 square feet since 2021. Our teams conduct an analysis, using the EC3 tool we seed-funded and co-developed, to help clients understand the range of carbon emission options for their top-emitting materials: concrete, steel, and asphalt.
Learn More
San Francisco, CA
Yotel
9000 Wilshire
Bellevue, WA
The Eight
Historic rehabilitation 203-room boutique hotel 60,000 SF + retail Delivered in 2018
4-story office 50,148 SF Under Construction Targeting LEED Platinum WiredScore Platinum certified Targeting Fitwel Certification
26-story office + retail 541,000 SF office 11,000 SF retail Under Construction Targeting LEED Platinum WiredScore Gold + Smart Score
$588 million project 3,500 feet long
Can withstand a catastrophic earthquake
San Diego, CA
North Coast Corridor, Phase 1
Under construction Seeking Envision certification
Produces an enhanced environment for endangered species
Highway and rail improvements and lagoon restoration
Runs 12 miles along San Diego coastline
EC3 tool
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 and more. Skanska has developed a sustainability playbook to address opportunities in early design through construction.
Innovative design
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."
—Heidi Creighton, vice president of sustainability for Skanska USA Commercial Development
Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Brock Environmental Center, Virginia Beach, VA
The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design, Atlanta, GA
North Carolina State University, James B. Hunt Library, Raleigh, NC
Leaders
Leading the way
Skanska’s industry-leaders within sustainability.
As a company that cares for life, we recognize how intrinsically the various areas of sustainability are connected. That requires a holistic action plan and ongoing commitment to a more responsible supply chain, to building and developing highly resilient projects, to meeting and exceeding targets of net zero and net positive energy, water, and waste, and to maximizing the health and wellness of people and the planet.
Mason Ford
Myrrh Caplan
Heidi Creighton
Director of Equipment Services for Skanska USA Civil
Vice President of Sustainability for Skanska USA Building
Vice President of Sustainability for Skanska USA Commercial Development
Learn more about sustainability
2022 Sustainability Report
In the news
Latest articles
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For the second consecutive year Skanska is named “Climate Leader in Europe” on the prestigious ranking collated by...
Skanska named international leader in sustainability by Financial Times
Skanska USA, one of the world’s largest development and construction companies, announced it has co-created the...
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According to a recent United Nations climate report, greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to increase...
Environmental protection in construction: 8 ways Skanska invests in our planet
Mass timber projects have seen exponential growth in the US over the last year, with a current growth rate of new projects starting once every three days. Traditionally used for...
The future of mass timber: key trends to watch
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According to the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction, the built environment is responsible for nearly...
Five things sustainability professionals can do to help the construction industry reduce its carbon footprint
Sustainability is one of those buzzwords that gets thrown around a lot. With so much in the news surrounding the many...
Sustainability in construction continues to evolve, and Skanska is at the leading edge
For media inquiries, please contact: Daniela Arellano, Communications Director
email: daniela.arellano@skanska.com phone: 213.317.4977
