Striving for a Just (label) Cause

Perkins Eastman is now a Just organization. After more than two years of data collection and review, we received the International Living Future Institute’s (ILFI) Just label this month for our 17 US offices. The designation gives us a transparent framework for creating meaningful policies around social justice and equity. The achievement is noteworthy: Perkins Eastman is one of only eight firms with more than 500 employees to receive the label within the architecture, engineering, and construction industry; and we’re among only 200 Just organizations of any size in the world. But, says Koray Aysin, Perkins Eastman’s leader of corporate sustainability, the label is not so much a badge of honor as it is a benchmark. “This milestone is not the end goal but a significant step on our journey,” says Aysin. “We are proud of our progress and eager to build on it, but we know there is still much work to be done.”

Perkins Eastman’s Just label highlights areas where the firm is performing well, and also areas where it needs to make improvement.

Commonly referred to as a nutrition label for social justice and equity, the ILFI website defines Just as a ‘program for people who aspire to make changes in their organizations.’ The baseline requirement of the label is that firms establish policies surrounding diversity, health, inclusion, benefits, compensation, and stewardship measures. Once policies are in place, the company is scored from two to four (with four being the highest) on more specific components within each measure.

While Perkins Eastman centers its mission on Human by Design, the firm was looking for a way to back that up and prove that its many efforts were making an impact. Juan Guarin, a member of the firm-wide sustainability team, helped identify Just as a promising framework.

Guarin, Aysin, and representatives from Perkins Eastman’s human resources, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), sustainability, and leadership teams approached ILFI and formed a committee in 2021 to develop a strategy. They identified their initial step: concentrating first on the 29-person PEDC, Perkins Eastman’s Washington, DC-based firm. The thinking was that by starting small, they’d have a solid foundation to pursue the label for the rest of Perkins Eastman’s US offices. PEDC earned the Just label in 2022, and soon after, the team began working in earnest to put the parts in place for Perkins Eastman’s 17 US offices. PEople Culture Manager Emily Pierson-Brown led the efforts to gather qualitative data, distributing engagement surveys and ultimately visiting all of Perkins Eastman’s US studios. “What we really wanted to understand was, ‘Are we actually fulfilling the commitments that we’re speaking out loud in our day-to-day practices?’” she says.

While the data is never going to be comprehensive (the surveys are not mandatory), Pierson-Brown and the team captured what metrics they could. Bringing in Human Resources Director Salema Gumbs and HR representatives Emily Castellano and Danielle Tinghatella to record and analyze the data were natural next steps. The insights they gained helped shed light on what needed to be formalized into firm-wide policies, which would establish the baseline for the metrics input into the Just framework.

The end result was an overhaul of Perkins Eastman’s employee handbook, where policies surrounding benefits and compensation join new ones addressing diversity and inclusion, health, and stewardship. For example, there is now guidance directing how the firm cultivates prospective employees and builds project teams; governing offices’ indoor environmental quality; and encouraging volunteer work and community involvement. The Just label is instrumental in upholding company culture, but it also includes a public element. “There’s a level of accountability with being transparent. Putting this information out to the public—we have to live up to it, we have to live by it, and we also have to go forward,” says Castellano.

“It’s about holding ourselves accountable to our values, our Human by Design promise. This reflects our belief that transparency and continuous improvement are essential to creating a positive impact, both within our firm and in the communities we serve,” says Nick Leahy, a Perkins Eastman co-CEO and executive director.

Approaching Just from a sustainability lens was also integral to achieving the label, Guarin says. Though it might not seem like an obvious connection (the definition of sustainability is often limited to environmental elements) social justice and equity are key components.

Perkins Eastman’s Sustainability Resolution measures key areas that directly relate to the Just label.

The release of the firm’s third-annual State of Sustainability report in July embodies this understanding. In addition to sustainable strategies around projects and design, the report highlights the firm’s operations and approach to DE&I, featuring an entire section devoted to the Just process. For the Human by Design promise to work, Perkins Eastman must focus on how humans impact design as well as how design impacts humans.

Perkins Eastman’s annual State of Sustainability report was released in July 2024.

“Every decision you’re making should account for sustainability,” says Guarin. “It goes back to the triple bottom line. Sustainability encompasses economic, social, and environmental issues. At Perkins Eastman, we believe that ‘sustainability’ means giving people a better future.”

It’s important to note that although the team gathered relevant data from all Perkins Eastman’s studios, including its seven international locations, the JUST label currently covers only its US offices. Expanding the Just label submission for Perkins Eastman’s global studios is the next step in the process. For more details on Just and the firm’s commitment to social justice and equity, look to the firm’s page on the Just database, the Culture section of our website, or p. 22 of our 2024 State of Sustainability report.