BY LEIGHA DICKENS, GREEN BUILDING & SUSTAINABILITY MANAGER AT DELTEC HOMES

It was a conversation that occurred in a car ride, on our way back to Deltec from attending a Benefit Corporation meeting, when Steven Linton, our company President—and one of my most respected mentors in sustainability—said it.  We were discussing how, as a company with an environmental commitment, you continue to stand out now that so many companies have adopted environmental and social goals (a very welcomed change!)  How do you continue to make yourself better than you used to be year after year when the easier work has been done, the beginning journey is in place, but significant challenges still remain?

One step, Steve said, is radical transparency. The process of telling our story holds us accountable to continue it and find ways to make it better. The more thorough we are, the clearer we can be with our clients, and with ourselves, on how to keep going.

One of the most challenging things about getting to work in an environmentalist role, as I am lucky enough to do, is that nothing you do is ever enough. There’s always more you might achieve if you had more time, more help, more capital, if only this better product or technology were available,  Yet in a world with a rapidly changing climate and a housing market facing considerable new challenges for how people live and interact with their homes, every single one of us has got to do more than we even imagined we could do.

This year’s sustainability report is our most radically transparent report ever.  For starters, it’s gone from 10 pages to nearly 28. It documents what’s been going well—how we’ve increased our sustainability programs over time—and also what’s left to do, where we’d still like to improve.

So, click here for the 2018 Sustainability Report if you’d like to know:

• The site energy it takes to run our operation
• What kind of waste materials we end up with, and what happens to those materials
• Where our raw materials come from, who makes them, how sustainable they are
• How we define green building, measure the energy efficiency of our homes, and what best practices for indoor air quality we insist upon with our clients
• How we treat our employees, give back to the community, stack up on inclusion measures
• What we wish we could do better and where we hope to be in the future if you, the customer, would place your trust in us to help us continue to thrive