The Social Side of Sustainability & The Importance of Inclusion | By Raven Adams

As we wrap up Sustainability Week 2022, Sustainability Lead Raven Adams explores the importance of bringing all voices into discussions about building a more sustainable future.

“Sustainability is not only about preserving and protecting the environment, but also about preserving the ability of society to sustain itself. These two goals are inextricably linked.” - Envision Guidance Manual, Version 3   

The biggest misconception about sustainability is that it is solely about protecting the environment. Environmental conservation and pollution prevention are important components of sustainability, but they are not the whole story. Sustainability also addresses the social aspects of human wellbeing. At its core, sustainability is about people and their quality of life.  

One of the most critical concepts for creating a more sustainable future is including different perspectives and reducing inequalities between different groups of people, because a more sustainable future is one where all people have access to a better quality of life. At Granite, we address this concept not only through our sustainability program, but also through our core value of inclusion and our inclusive diversity program.  

At Granite, we believe that by valuing and appreciating individual differences and similarities, we improve our performance and enrich the lives of our employees and communities. We are dedicated to creating a work culture that encourages inclusive diversity, which actively includes an infinite range of unique characteristics, experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives. This approach allows us to be inclusive of all the diversity we have today, tomorrow, and into the future. We believe that our differences and similarities enhance creativity and innovation while allowing us to develop cutting-edge working solutions that ultimately have a positive impact on how we achieve our business goals and objectives. 

I like to think of sustainability as a useful lens for considering problems or business opportunities. When we look through the lens of sustainability, we consider the triple bottom line of impacts on people, planet, and profit. Considering these different perspectives helps us see problems differently. When we include more people in discussions to get their perspectives, we also strengthen the power of this lens—that is why stakeholder engagement is such a key concept for sustainability. Including more perspectives when considering a challenge not only helps us better define and understand the problem, but also helps us create better solutions. 

We started this Sustainability Week with an article about the importance of stakeholder engagement, where we encouraged our teams to speak up about their thoughts on sustainability. Here we are closing the week by contemplating how we can use stakeholder engagement to create a more inclusive, and therefore more sustainable, future for all people. Throughout the week, we have highlighted different aspects of sustainability across our company, covering all four major components of our sustainability strategy: social responsibility, environmental stewardship, dependable governance, and enduring economic value. I hope this has broadened your perspective on sustainability and how it relates to our quality of life.