Corporate Sustainability at Harris

Our Journey

With new data emerging every day signaling the urgency to adopt more sustainable ways of living and working, Harris believes in doing our part—taking ownership of our consumption and our ability to make significant improvements.

In 2020, Harris & Associates embarked on a sustainability journey to continue transforming our organization from the inside out. We designed a high-level framework for our Corporate Sustainability Program to define sustainability in the context of Harris’ Purpose, Vision, Shared Values, and Roadmap. Like any successful journey, ours involves deliberate planning, action, and evaluation.

The Mission

We began by identifying a lodestar to guide us forward. Following a comprehensive stakeholder engagement process, business assessment, and selection of metrics material to our business, we developed a mission statement to inform decisions and actions:

Harris & Associates builds equitable, resilient, and sustainable communities. We foster green initiatives and create better places to live and work through healthy, smart, and safe practices for our employees, clients, and community.

The Program

Harris’ Corporate Sustainability Program will provide information, training, and resources that empower employee-owners to operate more sustainably, safely, and efficiently. By heightening our awareness and intentions, we believe Harris will strengthen our local communities through focused volunteer work and climate change partnerships.

Our program will also better align employee-owners with clients, project work, and operational imperatives that invite innovative options for resource conservation, supply chain impacts, environmental remediation, and responsible waste management.

The program will address social, environmental, and economic dimensions by focusing on the following areas:

Our Goals

Our goal is to build environmental accountability and leadership into our core processes. In doing so, we will share solutions and prepare our Harris Future of Work strategy—examining research, trends, certifications, best practices, and the role of technology across a wide spectrum of organizations, communities, and projects.

"I believe that sustainability intiatives must meet our current needs without undermining nature's ability to provide for future generations. I like that Harris is meeting the needs of our clients, as well as ours with sustainability programs and trainings. We are all in this together!"

–Kenneth Hicks, QSP, Construction Inspector