VOICEThe Issue 2, 2022 The official magazine of The Construction Users Roundtable JOIN CURT IN 2022! https://www.curt.orgThe Construction Users Roundtable 5 COVER STORY INDUSTRY LEADERS: 7 Jim Ellis, CURT President 9 Gregory Sizemore, Esq., CURT Executive Vice President THE COVER: FEATURES 21 Infrastructure Investment 23 Illuminating Change 25 The Impact of Musculoskeletal Injuries on Mental Health Protecting Our Greatest Assets: Our People 10 LEGAL BRIEF: 28 Who Stole My Copper Downspouts? 30 INDEX TO ADVERTISERS LEGALThe Construction Users Roundtable 7 INDUSTRY LEADERS A Message from the CURT President Jim Ellis CURT President Microsoft, Corporate VP Global Construction (Retired) For companies that excel in safety, what’s your next step? Might I suggest an additional focus on mental health, which is the next logical phase. Physical and mental health go hand in hand. ‘‘ I f you build it, they will come. I am sure you recognize this quote from the 1989 film Field of Dreams. Kevin Costner’s character Ray Kinsella heard it whispered in the corn fields and the “it” ended up being a baseball field where long-passed baseball players came to play. What does this have to do with construction? I’d like to suggest an alternative to this well-known phrase – if you believe and support it, change will come. In this case, the “it” I am referring to is safety – as in, if you, our industry’s leaders, focus on safety first, and drive it as a value with “Felt Leadership,” everything else will follow. 1 A safe project site is a productive project site. Experience and statistics show this to be true. A safe project site is also an on-time project site and an on-budget project site. And, I’d argue most importantly, a safe project site is a site where trades will want to work because they will feel supported in their roles every single day. Safety is a business and moral imperative that empowers and promotes a culture of care! CURT’s members have been safety leaders well before safety was a standard consideration. For this, I am proud! Extremely proud! CURT’s Safety Committee, which is made up of owner and contractor leaders, actively lend their expertise to panel discussions and event stages every year because when it comes to safety, knowledge isn’t proprietary – safety successes and lessons learned must be shared far and wide, with mega corporations and Mom and Pop businesses so that every person on every project leaves their shift in the same condition that they started. Starting on page 14, we have gathered details from the 2021 Construction Industry Safety Excellence (CISE) Award winners. You’ll read about owner and contractor safety programs that have worked and I would like to encourage you to think about what they have done and how you could incorporate even one of their ideas into your own safety programs. Even if your safety statistics are good, can they be better? The barrier to being great and achieving an injury and incident free workplace can come from relying on being good. Complacency typically becomes the enemy to safety excellence. On the other hand, sharing learnings and networking with other leaders just might be the key to reducing falls (the leading cause of death and injury in construction). Could a new training program better equip your teams to identify and reduce hazards? Is there a new technology or tool that enables risk identification and mitigation in the field? For companies that excel in safety, what’s your next step? Might I suggest an additional focus on mental health, which is the next logical phase. Physical and mental health go hand in hand. An employee who struggles with mental well-being can be a danger to themselves and others on the project site so just as the proper PPE is required for electricians, the appropriate mental health supports must be in place to ensure your workers are healthy, top to bottom, inside and out. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in five adults in the United States in 2020 were living with a mental illness. Construction suicides around the globe significantly surpass other industry segments. Leadership actions are critical and integral to support both building awareness and training across construction supply chains globally. Like physical safety, I’m confident together we will eventually turn this alarming trend and save lives! Now, a direct appeal to my fellow construction owners. It starts with us. If your company has safety as a core value, then the contractors and trades you partner with will as well. We must accept this as our highest leadership imperative in order to enable the safety of the people we have under our care! Every single employee deserves and should expect this of us. I am up for the challenge. Are You? Many individuals and their families are counting on us. Reference: 1. “Felt Leadership” is the name given to a style of leadership in which management wants employees to feel that their supervisors respect them and are deeply invested in their well-being. Felt leadership is about showing, not telling. https://www.dsslearning.com/felt-leadership-office/ MLLD03#:~:text=%E2%80%9CFelt%20leadership%E2%80%9D%20is%20the%20name,is%20about%20 showing%2C%20not%20telling Building Safety Into Every ProjectThe Construction Users Roundtable 9 INDUSTRY LEADERS A Message from the CURT Executive Vice President Greg Sizemore Executive Vice President The Construction Users Roundtable CURT members must lead the construction industry again, down the path to sustainable buildings. We must share our successes and case studies with each other so that we may learn from each other the best ways forward –this is of course, a pillar of CURT. ‘‘ W hile Jim Ellis focused on construction safety in his message this issue, I wanted to comment on another very important “s” word – sustainability. This is a topic that is being discussed industry wide, and worldwide, and one that the Construction Users Roundtable (CURT) intends to focus on in 2022 and years to come. Today’s modern projects are designed with sustainability and performance in mind. That said, emissions from the building and construction sector account for approximately 40 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, when adding emissions from the building construction industry on top of operation emissions (heating, cooling, etc.). 1 In 2019, emissions stemming from building operations hit their highest-ever level. As Jim noted in his message, CURT members were safety leaders before safety became a standard consideration on every single project. Now CURT members must lead the construction industry again, down the path to sustainable buildings. We must share our successes and case studies with each other so that we may learn from each other the best ways forward – this is of course, a pillar of CURT. It is exciting to note that many CURT members have already began their sustainable journeys. Microsoft, for example, is committed to growing its business responsibly by operating sustainable data centers. The company intends to be carbon negative by 2030, water positive by 2030, emit zero waste by 2030, and protect more land than it uses by 2025. The company will share its progress through quarterly blogs and annual reviews. 2 Google began its carbon neutral journey in 2007 and was one of the first major companies to do so. It also became the first major company to run on carbon-free energy 24/7/365. Designing energy efficient data centers is a major part of Google’s plan. They report that on average, their data centers are two times as energy efficient as a typical data center, and from 2009 to 2020, over 1.5 million m 2 of Google office space facilities achieved LEED certification. 3 Another example comes from Autodesk, which released its first Impact Report more than a decade ago. In its 2021 report, the company announced that it is now a net-zero GHG emissions company across the entire business and value chain. Autodesk is also committed to using 100 percent renewable energy and in fiscal year 2021, began purchasing renewable energy for all employees working from home during the pandemic, in addition to using renewables to power all offices. The company also focuses heavily on procuring even the most basic of supplies, such as paper, from environmentally friendly suppliers. 4 These are three examples from three major corporations. Put their progress together, and the overall effect is akin to a grain of sand – one tiny pebble is hardly noticeable, but millions combined creates beaches and ecosystems all over the world. Please reach out to the CURT office if you have a sustainability case study or report to share; we need to spread the ways in which construction companies are and can support sustainable efforts on a global scale. Until next time, I wish you health and happiness. References: 1.https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/building-sector-emissions-hit-record- high-low-carbon-pandemic 2.https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/sustainability/report 3.https://www.gstatic.com/gumdrop/sustainability/google-2021-environmental-report.pdf 4.https://damassets.autodesk.net/content/dam/autodesk/www/sustainability/docs/pdf/ autodesk-fy2021-impact-report.pdf Sustainable Goals for 2022 and BeyondNext >