Webcor’s latest sustainability milestone has garnered high client praise and better positioned us for future project wins: Thanks to the tireless dedication of several Webcorians across various teams, we’ve earned a Bronze Medal from EcoVadis, a third-party environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rating system, for the third consecutive year.

• EcoVadis’s ratings and insights aim to enable all companies to “reduce risk, drive improvement, and accelerate positive impact on our planet and society.”

This achievement is particularly notable given EcoVadis’s new rating scale: To maintain our Bronze status, we needed to move from the top 39 percent of all EcoVadis-rated companies to the top 35 percent.

• EcoVadis assesses companies’ sustainability performance in four key areas—Environment, Labor & Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement.
• Third-party measurement of our ESG performance falls under the “Performance” category (14: External Reporting) of our corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitment.

“A rating from an international, respected company like EcoVadis validates our alignment with a holistic ESG framework,” says Sr. Sustainability Director Sarah Rege, who championed Webcor’s journey to EcoVadis Bronze.

Why It Matters

Upon hearing the news, CitizenM—a longtime client that requires an EcoVadis rating from all project partners—immediately reached out to congratulate us on our rating and dedication to continued improvement.
CitizenM isn’t the only client paying attention, though: As conversations around ESG continue to soar, more public and private owners are prioritizing general contractors’ commitments to sustainability and community engagement when awarding new work. In a sea of competitors touting their CSR accomplishments, our EcoVadis Bronze rating helps distinguish us as a uniquely qualified and like-minded business partner.

• “When pursuing new work, the significance of a current EcoVadis rating cannot be underestimated,” Sarah says. “Major clients such as the University of California are also interested in our rating; its impact certainly isn’t limited to just one client.”

Meeting EcoVadis’s Rigorous Standards for Bronze

In 2024, EcoVadis restructured its rating system: In previous years, participating companies simply needed to earn a certain number of points to achieve its desired rating, e.g. Webcor achieved 54 points last year to achieve Bronze, placing us in the top 39 percent.

As of Jan. 1, 2024, however, all companies are rated based on their percentile rank, which is calculated across all companies in all industries (versus all companies within the same industry).

• To maintain our Bronze rating in 2024, Webcor had to place in the top 35 percent of all companies rated in EcoVadis’s database over the last year.

To meet EcoVadis’s increasingly stringent requirements for Bronze, Webcorians across several departments partnered with Sustainability on addressing the following improvement areas:

EcoVadis Theme: Environment (High-Impact Policy)

• Action: Create and implement an environmental policy for use on all projects (Best Practice/Exhibit)some text
  • This policy will be added to Best Practices.
• Collaborators: Safety Director Mario Rodriguez and Sr. Dept. Coordinator Emily Schmitt

EcoVadis Theme: Environment (Reporting)

• Action: Improve and implement tracking of key environmental metrics (total energy consumption, total Scope 1 and 2 GHG Emissions, total weight of non-hazardous waste, etc.)
• Collaborator: Sustainability Manager Kavita Karmarkar and Sr. Construction Manager John Tuttle

EcoVadis Theme: Labor & Human Rights (High-Impact Policy)

• Action: Create and implement a Labor & Human Rights Policy for use on all projects (Best Practice/Exhibit)some text
  • This policy’s been added to Webcor’s Employee Handbook: Policy Against Human Trafficking and Forced Labor and Unlawful Child Labor (pg. 14)
• Collaborator: Chief People Officer/EVP Mei Lin Wolff

EcoVadis Theme: Labor & Human Rights (Reporting)

• Ongoing Action: Align reporting KPIs with the Global Reporting Initiative
• Collaborators: Director, Total Rewards Kay Prescher (social benefits), HR Specialist Dante Robinson (training), and Sr. Director, Employee Experience Tim Wortham (training)

EcoVadis Theme: Sustainable Procurement (Policies & Measures)

• Action: Create and implement a Responsible Procurement Plan (RPP) for use on all projects (Best Practice/Exhibit)
• This policy will be added to Best Practices.
• Collaborators: SVP, Project Planning Allison McCue and Corporate Counsel Nicole Thal

Sr.  Director, IT Operations Allen Wooley; Enterprise Security Engineer II Jeffrey Phurrough; Sr. Director, Construction Brent Griffis; Sr. Preconstruction Director Ryan Hoff; and VP, Project Success and Solutions Nihan Tiryaki also collaborated closely with Sustainability on determining our “explore” areas—areas they’ll further explore to help establish our future ESG goals.

What’s Next?

The Sustainability team is strategizing next steps to improve our 2025 EcoVadis score, including external reporting, consolidated reporting, development of quantitative KPIs that measure our implementation of new practices, reporting in new areas, etc., while ensuring alignment with our CSR framework and goals.

With the passing of SB-219, aka the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (CCCDAA), Sarah says we can also expect an improvement in our EcoVadis score when we report externally on our GHG emissions.

• CCDAA requires California businesses such as Webcor to calculate and publicly report their greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks.
• “This legislation aligns with EcoVadis in several ways, so that will definitely support our efforts next year,” Sarah says.