Many Millennials will tell you that there are a number of misconceptions about their generation. Frequently depicted as a technology addicted and entitled group who fear commitment, it might seem that millennials aren’t the hardest working, goal-centric, or disciplined – at least compared to Baby Boomers and Gen Xers.
Members of Commercial Real Estate Women San Francisco (CREW-SF), including Alicia Deschamps, RIM Architects; AJ Jacobsen, CBRE; Erica Levine, ARUP; Verushka Doshi, Haworth; and Kena David, BCCI Construction Company, tackle the topic of millennials in the workforce in the article, “Millennial Mythbusters,” and consider both truths and fallacies of generational stereotypes.
Myth #5: Millennials avoid offices so that they can sit at home and be lazy.
BCCI Sustainability Manager, Kena David and Erica Levine, Energy Consultant at Arup address millennials being labeled as “lazy.” While acknowledging the basis for that idea, they also maintain that it is all wrong! “Many millennial-dominated companies (such as the ever hip start-up’s) allow employees to work outside of the office and standard working hours, reducing the amount of time that employees spend at their desks. This can give off the impression that millennials are lazy slackers who can’t drag themselves out of bed.”
“Flexible working arrangements may actually increase employee effectiveness, allowing more work to get done in the same amount of time. Research indicates that working in an office is actually quite inefficient.”
Kena David, Sustainability Manager, BCCI Construction and Erica Levine, Energy Consultant, Arup
David goes on to note that the ability to work remotely increases productivity due to fewer distractions and interruptions that often occur in an office environment. Basically, having the latitude to work in or out of the office and during hours that are not “the standard,” gives millennials the opportunity to perform at their most optimal.
While evident that millennials are different than the generations that have come before them – whether it comes to goals, tactics, or work style – as the largest population in the workforce, they carry significant influence in the future of work environments as well as work-life balance policies.
Click here to read all the myths.
Kena David, Sustainability Manager | BCCI Construction
Amanda Sturgeon, CEO of the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) and keynote speaker, kicked off the conference with this year’s four-letter word, a word that we should all be mindful of throughout the conference: FAIL. This was shocking, especially for those of us in the sustainability world, revealing to us how we fall short of the goals set forth by ILFI. Her message was that we must acknowledge our shortcomings and not dwell on them in order to focus on how we can change our approach to make a difference in our own lives and within our business. To improve initiatives, we must look at our current state.
Two of the primary values of ILFI are social justice and community. The JUST program was created by ILFI as a transparency platform to help organizations assess their operations, policies, and financial and community investments. At BCCI, our journey with JUST began in 2014, reviewing our existing company policies and financials to benchmark our current state of social justice, equity, and stewardship.
This year’s unConference featured a track with sessions focused on equity, including “Taking Action to Advance Social Equity in the Workplace” in which I spoke about BCCI’s JUST Label. The panel consisted of early adopters of the JUST program who shared what changes they have made since becoming a JUST organization. Our own experience with JUST has resulted in improvements to a number of company policies and procedures.
For BCCI, benchmarking has been the most valuable benefit to pursuing the JUST Label. It gives companies the opportunity to assess current social justice measures, quantify them, and make objective decisions to optimize future efforts. For example, at BCCI we took a second look at our Charitable Giving activities, as that is an area that significantly contributes to our company culture. Through obtaining our JUST Label and analyzing how well we performed in Stewardship, we were able to quantify our current efforts, improve future charitable giving, and align the goals of our Community Builders committee, an internal group committed to supporting the communities in which we work through volunteering and fundraising.
One other area in which we are looking to improve is Safety. As a general contractor, we have an excellent safety record, with an experience modification rating well below industry standard. However, the way in which Safety was measured by JUST, with all industries measured equally, our score was on the lower end of the scale. In our resubmission to renew our JUST Label, the JUST Program Manager realized that the difference between recordable incidents to cases with a job transfer, restriction, or days away from work was significant; and therefore, adjusted our stats for Safety to reflect our 12+ months of no lost time injuries.
Resonating with the unConference’s theme of Authenticity + Action, BCCI is not only interested in documenting our efforts as a JUST organization, but also how we can improve on our policies and future initiatives. In the session I was a part of, both the panelists and the audience shared ideas on how organizations can push to grow and increase their commitments to social justice and equity in the workplace. As BCCI prepares to renew our JUST Label again later this year, we are working to gather and disclose even more information about gender equality to continue to improve equity and diversity. As a JUST organization, BCCI will continually strive for authenticity and transparency to bring and to maintain social equity in our workplace.
The International Living Future Institute is part nonprofit, part think-tank and part regenerative design framework. The institute’s most prominent rating system, the Living Building Challenge (LBC), has congruent aspirations to other systems. Like LEED, LBC strives to reduce our impact on the environment by encouraging commissioning and efficient water fixtures. Parallel to WELL, LBC underlines the importance of human health in facilitating healthy lifestyle choices and less toxic material selection.
The ILFI and LBC, however, move past LEED and WELL in beckoning a paradigm shift in how we consider green building. Instead of innovating within established norms, the breakouts, keynotes and networking sessions at Living Future were oriented around building in ecologically and socially restorative ways. The ILFI is interested in how structures can enhance and restore systems in communities, whether it involves water cycles, embodied carbon in materials, urban agriculture or energy storage. We spent several days discussing ways in which buildings could be viewed as habitats for humans, and contribute rather than take from local geographies. The LBC’s framework allows designers, architects, and contractors to step outside of the box- striving towards constructing impressive buildings such as these:
Kern Center, Hampshire, NH: 46 acres dedicated to permanent conservation; 1.6 acres for organic farm production
Phipps Center for Sustainable Landscapes, Pittsburgh, PA: Embodied carbon in materials; net zero energy
ARCH | NEXUS, Sacramento, CA: Contribution to public bicycle infrastructure; net zero water
Northern California’s Rising Leaders Committee co-chair shares what inspired her about Greenbuild Chicago
Halie Colbourne, Sustainability Associate | BCCI Construction
USGBC’s international conference and expo, Greenbuild, took place at McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago this November. This year’s theme, “Human x Nature,” was interwoven throughout the conference—in session rooms adorned with biophilic elements, in Amal Clooney’s opening plenary human rights speech and in the Women in Green Luncheon, which focused on workplace policies, cultures, mentorship and leadership.
As co-chair of the USGBC Northern California Rising Leaders Committee, I appreciated the multitude of conversations that viewed these issues through a different set of lenses. Part of our committee’s purpose is to offer a fresh, innovative perspective to the USGBC Northern California community and secure the future of green building by maintaining a pipeline of passionate, competent leaders.
These sentiments were echoed in the Women in Green Power Lunch that I attended. Research studies by McKinsey, Deloitte and others show companies with a higher percentage of women are more profitable. One of the ladies present also suggested that the workforce look to young women for fresh ideas.
The need to change our lens was again reiterated in another session I attended, “LEED and Climate Change.” Although the industry has evolved to look at materials and renovations, it’s time to shift our focus to a broader view—one that encompasses and connects climate change and human rights.
The presenters emphasized, “Metrics matter and they’re not easy.” They referenced the recently published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and its honest look at the irreparable damage of a warming earth. According to this data, all building emissions need to be reduced 80 to 90 percent by 2050, and new construction must be fossil-free and near net zero energy by 2020. In addition, the rate of energy rehabilitation for existing buildings will need to increase to 5 percent per year in developed countries.
Part of our solution is to share these essential conversations with our clients and colleagues. The “Gaming for a Resilient Future: Net-Zero Energy Campuses” session shared a case study on Long Beach Community College. They noted, “The student population is expecting stewardship.” This reminded me of the importance of the work our Rising Leaders Committee is doing. Our purpose is to bolster the careers of young professionals from a range of disciplines through networking opportunities and hands-on leadership experience. Often, a common language is what’s most important to achieve aggressive sustainability goals such as net zero energy. It’s also crucial to understand that sometimes not building at all is the only way to maintain a building’s carbon footprint.
Overall, I was very pleased to hear and be a part of the radical conversations and movement to meet the criteria set by the IPCC. Mahesh Ramanujam, President and CEO of USGBC and GBCI, shared his belief that partnership is leadership. If I can make a change at the local level by helping equip participants with the tools they need to succeed as leaders of their organizations, their communities and the sustainability movement, then I am “All In.” I also will remember Amal’s words, that helping one life is enough.
This article was originally published on USGBC.org.