Feature image: Graduates of the Green Janitor Education Program. Image courtesy of USGBC Los Angeles.

Just as the definition of sustainability has expanded over time to include a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, those terms themselves (typically combined under the acronym “DEI”) are also evolving.

The definition of DEI

“Diversity” has come to mean not only that companies engage in equal opportunity hiring, but also that they make proactive efforts to hire people from underrepresented groups, ensure that diverse viewpoints are considered when weighing important decisions, and strive to make sure their leadership teams reflect wider society and the communities they serve.

“Equity” in sustainability means that the green building community should not only seek to conserve energy and reduce waste, but should also engage with the vulnerable communities that are likely to face the largest impacts of climate change.

Last but not least, “inclusion” may mean questioning fundamental assumptions about the built environment to ensure that everybody—regardless of race, disability, income, gender identity or expression—feels that they belong.

"Last year, USGBC and GBCI released a joint DEI vision statement to guide our work in this arena. We are looking to our green building community to share experiences and perspectives to help us realize this vision," says Peter Templeton, president and CEO of USGBC and GBCI. "Our efforts include expanding partnerships, incorporating equity into the LEED integrative process credit, developing new pilot credits, and evaluating current policies and procedures to identify opportunities for improvement. Equity and inclusion align with the core values of our community, and we feel that it’s important not to take a 'checklist' view of DEI issues, but rather to embed them in practices across organizations—and, indeed, across the entire community."

Here’s a window into actions that leaders are taking across the green building sector to promote DEI in four important ways: workforce development, mentoring and outreach, universal design, and hiring practices and organizational goals.

Workforce development

Gleniss Wade, workforce development program manager for D.C. Sustainable Energy Utility (DCSEU), recalls a young Latino man who came to the organization’s workforce development program with an engineering degree, but with no work history. DCSEU matched the man with a local employer for an externship, and the company hired him for a full-time role several months later.

“He was actually making more money than I make,” Wade says. “But he had so little experience that he actually called me to ask whether he should take the position. I was like: ‘Take the job!’”

The story is just one of many that Wade can rattle off about the workforce development program, which connects around 50 extremely diverse Washington, D.C., residents with on-the-job training opportunities each year. There’s also the single dad who was driving an Uber, happened to give a ride to a DCSEU leader and mentioned that he had HVAC experience. After an externship, the dad was hired by the facilities department at Howard University. Then there’s the example of the shy young man who moved on from early brushes with the law to a successful career in solar energy.

Workforce development programs are needed in green building, Wade says, in part because people from underrepresented communities often lack access to traditional hiring pipelines.

“It’s pretty hard for a recent college graduate or a person who just received a certificate, if they don’t have experience,” she says. “This program allows them to get that on-the-job experience, and it gives the mentors a chance to see what that person can actually do. It’s a win-win situation.”

A woman in a red blazer smiles at the camera in her office. — Left: Gleniss Wade, workforce development program manager for DCSEU, helps match District residents with job opportunities. Photo credit: Robert R. Roberts. Right: Ben Stapleton, executive director of USGBC Los Angeles, works with his son at an outdoor sustainability event. Photo courtesy of Ben Stapleton.

A man in a sun hat works in a garden with his young son. — Left: Gleniss Wade, workforce development program manager for DCSEU, helps match District residents with job opportunities. Photo credit: Robert R. Roberts. Right: Ben Stapleton, executive director of USGBC Los Angeles, works with his son at an outdoor sustainability event. Photo courtesy of Ben Stapleton.

On the West Coast, USGBC Los Angeles has spearheaded programs aimed at opening up opportunities in green building for people in historically blue-collar fields like landscaping and janitorial work. A nine-part certificate program designed and supported by USGBC Los Angeles and its partners teaches landscapers how to successfully manage California-native plants and gardens, and the Green Janitors Education Program now teaches janitors nationwide how to operate and maintain buildings in ways that align with green building goals.

Francisco Ruiz, a landscape designer in Southern California who has completed the landscaping program, shares that he meets many homeowners in the area concerned with drought and sustainability. “I am increasingly asked about California native plants for gardens. Being certified through the CNPLC has allowed me to offer that specialty to my clients,” he says. “I can meet the growing demand for water conservation and habitat restoration. I can create beautiful gardens featuring California native plants and instruct clients about proper care, maintenance and irrigation. The training has been valuable and allowed me to expand my professional services as a designer, and I’ve recently been hired by the Theodore Payne Foundation to instruct for this program in 2023.”

Another graduate of the CNPLC, Carla Susana Camacho Lopez, shares that the option to take the class in Spanish was extremely helpful. “Finding people with the same interests and being able to learn and share knowledge with them has been a very rewarding and enriching experience for me,” she says. “[I] reinforced my knowledge about the care of native plants, pruning, irrigation and their importance in our environment and our ecosystems...My husband and I have undertaken several projects dedicated to native plants and we are very excited to see how far we can go with these initiatives and the change we can generate in our environment.”

One of the green janitor program partners concurs. "Janitors can use the GJEP credential on their resume, typically to receive a janitorial position at another company,” says Luis Sandoval, executive director of Building Skills Partnership. He emphasizes that the program’s credential can help applicants stand out from others to get a position that is more convenient for their personal schedules, which is in turn more conducive to work-life balance and accommodating of family needs.

Two women stand in front of a series of renderings and labels on the wall written in Spanish. — Participants in a Green Janitors Education Program session conducted in Spanish. Photo courtesy of USGBC Los Angeles.

Ben Stapleton, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of USGBC, says that programs like these both lead to sustainability wins and provide new opportunities to workers. While many companies are quick to hire a chief sustainability officer, he notes, these same organizations sometimes fail to provide adequate training for the frontline workers who will actually execute a sustainability strategy.

“It’s one thing to give somebody a list of regulations and rules to follow, and it’s another thing to offer educational opportunities so that sustainability becomes part of what they do on a day-to-day basis,” Stapleton says. “They feel really empowered, and these are communities that have often historically been excluded from education and engagement around sustainability.”

“Our hope is that we can find ways to help people level up their earning potential with this knowledge,” Stapleton adds. “We’ve had people who have started new landscaping careers after taking our course, because they see the opportunity. As the world transitions to a cleaner and greener economy, we want to position people who participate in these programs to be included in that transition and find ways to make more money as part of the process.”

Mentoring and outreach

For aspiring Black women architects from Michigan in search of a mentor who shares their race and gender identity, Saundra Little is one of only 14 options.

Little, LEED AP BD+C, who is principal and director of diversity, equity and inclusion for the architecture firm Quinn Evans, notes with something of a resigned laugh that there are only 14 licensed architects in the state who are Black women. Coming up in her own career, Little’s mentors were mostly white men, and she didn’t even meet another Black woman in the field until she had graduated from architecture school.

Today, Little strives to be the role model she lacked as a young architect, working with students and other people early in their careers—on her own, as the DEI director for Quinn Evans, and as the Midwest vice president for the National Organization of Minority Architects.

“Some of the pain points you go through in your profession, everybody goes through,” Little says. “But others, you go through because you are a minority in the profession. I try to serve both of those. I’ll take people out to lunch, I’ll invite them into the office. I’ll invite them on construction tours, which I think is important. I had never walked a site with another architect before getting into a firm. Just seeing how the drawn world connects to the physical world, I think that’s really powerful,” she says.

A woman in a black blazer smiles at a colleague. — Left: Saundra Little, principal and director of diversity, equity and inclusion for Quinn Evans, strives to be a role model for young architects. Photo courtesy of Quinn Evans. Right: Sarah Nelson-Woynicz launched the Pride by Design blog space to feature LGBTQ+ voices in the design world. Photo courtesy of Sarah Nelson-Woynicz.

A woman in a pinstripe blazer smiles at the camera. — Left: Saundra Little, principal and director of diversity, equity and inclusion for Quinn Evans, strives to be a role model for young architects. Photo courtesy of Quinn Evans. Right: Sarah Nelson-Woynicz launched the Pride by Design blog space to feature LGBTQ+ voices in the design world. Photo courtesy of Sarah Nelson-Woynicz.

Sarah Nelson-Woynicz, LEED AP BD+C and project architect at HKS, Inc., started Pride by Design as a blog space to feature the voices of LGBTQ+ professionals in the architecture and design world. The effort centers visibility through storytelling and has morphed into a way to connect people across the industry, build community and foster conversations between people who don’t always see their identities represented among their colleagues.

“I don’t think that I would be where I am in the profession today without having mentors who have walked alongside me and made themselves available to answer questions that come up in real time,” says Nelson-Woynicz. “That's incredibly important for anybody, regardless of where you are in your career.”

Nelson-Woynicz notes that, although many people tend to think of the design and architecture world as a friendly space for LGBTQ+ individuals, government-mandated workplace protections around those identities are relatively recent developments. She also notes that a cisgender white gay man may have a very different experience in the industry from that of, say, a transgender woman of color.

“Certain identities are incredibly visible, and there are other identities that are not as visible or as represented,” Nelson-Woynicz says. “I think things get complex and sometimes messy really quickly, in the sense that the industry is not always as inclusive as one might perceive.”

Nelson-Woynicz says she is mindful that not everyone is willing, ready or has the safety to be open in the workplace about their sexual orientation or gender identity, but she also stresses the importance of visibility—especially in leadership positions. “It’s powerful when students coming out of school can look at a firm and say, ‘I do see an identity that I can relate to there,’” she says. “We are here, queer architects and design professionals have been here for quite some time, and I think there is this fresh breath of air in visibility, and an opportunity to lean in and make sure that the profession continues moving forward instead of taking steps back.”

Accessibility and inclusive design

Over time, the terms “inclusive design” and “universal design” have become much more…well, inclusive and universal.

Edward Steinfeld, distinguished professor of architecture and director of the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access (IDEA Center) at the University of Buffalo, SUNY, says that accessibility laws and regulations are typically concerned with accommodating physical disabilities. While these are important, Steinfeld says, designers and builders should look through a much larger lens.

“Inclusive design is a very broad field,” Steinfeld says. “We’re increasingly looking at it as an intersectional design activity. You can’t ignore race, you can’t ignore income disparities, you can’t ignore ethnicity, you can’t ignore the LGBTQ+ community.”

Steinfeld’s view of inclusive design includes not only wheelchair ramps and Braille signage, but also bathroom designs that are inclusive of transgender people, acoustic designs that accommodate people with sensory issues, and educational programming and signage that honors the people who helped to build—or were displaced by—historic buildings.

Steinfeld lauds efforts to incorporate social justice and inclusive design as elements of sustainability, including LEED credits that address these issues. “It’s fine to design a sustainable building, but if you’re designing a workplace that can’t be accessed by people of color because they live in places that don’t have decent transportation to the site, is that building really inclusive and sustainable?” he says.

A woman in a blue sleeveless shirt smiles at the camera. — Toar Sadia (left), senior inclusive design consultant for Buro Happold, and Edward Steinfeld (right), professor of architecture and director of the IDEA Center at SUNY Buffalo, advocate for inclusive design that is broad and intersectional. Photos courtesy of Toar Sadia and Edward Steinfeld.

A man in a black blazer smiles at the camera. — Toar Sadia (left), senior inclusive design consultant for Buro Happold, and Edward Steinfeld (right), professor of architecture and director of the IDEA Center at SUNY Buffalo, advocate for inclusive design that is broad and intersectional. Photos courtesy of Toar Sadia and Edward Steinfeld.

Toar Sadia, senior inclusive design consultant for Buro Happold, says that the fuller breadth of access and inclusion has often overlooked in the design of the built environment.

“It’s about looking at people from all the different lenses of who they are and what they may require from a space, looking at all aspects of their diversity,” she says. “If you have a physical disability, a sensory disability or a cognitive disability, then you might require a certain accommodation in order to make the environment accessible to you. But there are other aspects of inclusive design as well, such as considerations around gender, parenthood and family, or neurodiversity.”

Sadia notes the importance in having awareness and sensitivity towards people’s differences, with an understanding that barriers may exist in any design element. For instance, something as simple as selecting a certain floor finish may pose a barrier to various people. A highly contrasting geometric floor pattern may be a barrier to people with visual hypersensitivity who may find it overwhelming, may cause confusion to people with vision impairments who may read the environment incorrectly, and may cause people with dementia to stop or move about unsafely due to interpreting the pattern as a physical barrier. She says that changes made to accommodate specific populations often end up improving experiences for broader swaths of people.

“Curb cuts in the U.S. were designed to respond to the needs of wheelchair users, but then, of course, a lot of people benefit from them, whether it’s parents with strollers, a person using a bike or somebody pushing a cart,” Sadia says. “I think it’s the same with designing for neurodiversity and to reduce overwhelm. This knowledge on inclusive design provides you with tools for creating spaces that are better for everyone.”

Hiring practices and organizational goals

Chris Schaffner, LEED AP BD+C, chief executive officer and founder of the 28-person sustainable design consulting firm The Green Engineer, Inc., says the company has always embraced fair hiring and nondiscrimination practices. In the summer of 2020, though, as the country erupted in protests after the murder of George Floyd, Schaffner says he realized that that wasn’t enough.

“I came out of that thinking that there’s no middle ground,” says Schaffner, whose firm is headquartered in Concord, Massachusetts. “It’s the idea that you either are working to end racism, or you are part of the problem. That was my own personal epiphany around that, but I think it’s allowed us as a firm to embrace anti-racism as a key part of our mission and include that in our definition of sustainability.”

A diverse group of adults and high schoolers smiles at the camera. — Staff with The Green Engineer at an antiracism program they hosted at Wellesley High School, in partnership with Friends of Wellesley Metco, Inc., to encourage high school students of diverse backgrounds to explore careers in the AEC industry and to promote a related scholarship. Photo courtesy of The Green Engineer.

The firm’s staff now comprises over 50% women, with diverse racial and ethnic identities represented, as well, Schaffner says. The Green Engineer appointed Tiffany Cogell as the firm’s benefit director, and she has conducted training sessions on implicit and explicit bias and helped to revamp the company’s hiring processes.

Previously, The Green Engineer would strip names and schools off resumes to try to create a completely unbiased hiring process. However, Schaffner says that Cogell pointed out that this process ignored the unique skills, experiences and backgrounds that candidates of diverse backgrounds bring to the table.

“In theory, we had been trying to pick somebody based on their qualifications, and not pick somebody because they have a name like mine or they went to the right schools,” Schaffner says. “But in fact, we were missing a key part of people’s stories.”

When the San Francisco Giants partnered with the Port of San Francisco and developer Tishman Speyer to redevelop 28 acres across from the Giants’ LEED Platinum ballpark, the parties committed to making diversity, equity and inclusion key components of the project, says Iowayna Peña, director for real estate and development for the development effort.

“We are peeling back the layers to look at even what the subcontractor and contractor communities look like,” Peña says. “We really wanted to infuse our project with more women, more minority-owned businesses and LGBTQ-certified businesses. We’ve tried to cast a very wide net and have as many touch points as we could around what it means to truly be a diverse and inclusive worksite.”

A man in a black sweater smiles at the camera. — Left: Chris Schaffner, CEO of The Green Engineer, Inc., focuses on implementing anti-racism strategies at his company. Photo courtesy of Chris Schaffner. Right: Iowayna Peña, director for real estate and development for Mission Rock, brought a high percentage of women-owned and minority-owned businesses in as contractors for the project. Photo credit: Suzanna Mitchell.

A woman in a navy blazer smiles at the camera. — Left: Chris Schaffner, CEO of The Green Engineer, Inc., focuses on implementing anti-racism strategies at his company. Photo courtesy of Chris Schaffner. Right: Iowayna Peña, director for real estate and development for Mission Rock, brought a high percentage of women-owned and minority-owned businesses in as contractors for the project. Photo credit: Suzanna Mitchell.

Mission Rock is a $2 billion-plus mixed-use development with 11 planned buildings that will include 1.4 million square feet of office and lab space, at least 1,000 residential units, 200,000 square feet of retail, and eight acres of open space. The first phase of the project is nearing completion and certified LEED Gold.

Women-owned firms like Studio Gang, Min Design, Work AC and Scape were involved in the early stages of the design project, project leaders have targeted recruitment efforts at underrepresented areas of the city, and $1 million has been dedicated to workforce training.

Tishman Speyer’s focus on equity for the project meant defining up front, with all construction partners, that it expected to see higher percentages of woman-owned and minority-owned small businesses on bid lists and final procurement recommendations—a strategy that has resulted in “unprecedented levels of these prioritized businesses as a portion of the local small business participation numbers,” says Peña.

Peña, who identifies as Afro-Indigenous, has made a point of attending hiring events alongside other women of color in the industry.

“When you see someone standing in front of you who has been doing this work for 15 years and they come from your community, that’s a big thing,” Peña says. “This is intimate work. You’re going into vulnerable communities and spaces and asking people to trust you with advice about a potential career that they may not be familiar with.”

“When you’re talking about communities that don’t have the best experience with redevelopment, it’s not about just seeing a face that they’re familiar with,” Peña adds. “It’s about authenticity.”

Equity efforts at USGBC

Internal focus

What is USGBC doing to advance equity in the built environment? The organization is working to weave the principles of social equity into its internal operations and the LEED rating system alike:

An organizational equity team has been exploring DEI issues and solutions, using an agenda shaped by a rubric that was shared by the board. Part of that work was the creation and adoption of an equity vision statement for USGBC and GBCI.

Through meetings and chat sessions, the team shares information and initiates and participates in training, such as the two diversity training sessions that were conducted by an outside consulting firm and a follow-up session on bias that was created and conducted by USGBC’s director of education data, Arnold Kee.

Future measures include having an external firm conduct an equity audit of USGBC’s policies and procedures, as well as creating additional training opportunities for staff to continue their journey of examining their own beliefs and how those beliefs affect their interactions with other staff and customers.

Industry focus

In 2014, USGBC launched a set of pilot credits related to social equity. Since that time, many projects, including the MHCD Dahlia Campus for Health and Well-being and the Washington State University Elson S. Floyd Cultural Center, have used the credits to help apply equitable practices to the building development process.

In addition to the specifically named social equity pilot credits, several other LEED pilot credits also encourage equity, such as those for heat island mitigation, all-gender restrooms and inclusive design.

As stakeholders have reflected on the Future of LEED, they have settled on principles envisioned for LEED v5 that include the importance of equity in the supply chain, diversity on the project team and inclusion of the community.

To support the embedding of equity into new versions of LEED, the new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group was formed, and it met for the first time in March.

­A 360-degree view of DEI in green building

A 360-degree view of DEI in green building