On Jan. 23, Falls Church, Virginia-based HITT Contracting broke ground on its new headquarters. With its new location, the contractor promised to emphasize sustainability via a 100,000-square-foot photovoltaic solar canopy and wind turbines and an advanced power-over-ethernet system for lighting alongside office furniture produced from recycled materials by HITT’s forthcoming 3D printing farm.
But amid the ribbon cutting and the celebration of sustainability, a totally different effort had recently begun at the White House, less than 10 miles away. President Donald Trump, in the hours and days after his inauguration, signed a flurry of executive orders set to de-prioritize clean energy and sustainability projects that the federal government has a hand in, and roll back what he calls the “Green New Deal.”
While originally a bill introduced in Congress by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019 that hasn’t passed, Trump has used the term to broadly refer to many provisions included in the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. By contrast, Trump issued his oil and gas-favored “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, which has stymied funds from both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. The order has fueled a protracted legal battle over its constitutionality, and alarmed builders over the implications of what a long-term funding freeze could mean for their projects.
The administration plans to speed up permits for energy infrastructure projects powered by oil, gas, nuclear, coal, hydropower and biofuel, and suspended issuing any onshore or offshore renewable energy authorizations.
Despite that backdrop, for builders like HITT, which have made sustainability part of their core focus, it’s business as usual. During the firm’s groundbreaking, CEO Kim Roy told Construction Dive that the photovoltaic canopy that is integral to its new headquarters is a physical representation of the commitment that builders should consider when it comes to the environment and energy usage.
“Nothing changes course for us. We’ve always understood the importance of environmental stewardship, so no change in our focus,” Roy said.
HITT and Roy aren’t alone. Other builders with an eye toward resilient construction say they plan to stay the course on their sustainability practices. While some of those efforts are wound into the structure of their businesses, as is the case with HITT, contractors also say that the demand for sustainability doesn’t only come from within, but also from their customers and the regulations they need to adhere to.
“A lot of private clients that have long had standing sustainability commitments in their own portfolios, and to their own stakeholders and investors, are not changing their track,” said Myrrh Caplan, vice president of sustainability for Skanska USA, whose corporate headquarters is in Sweden. “They are on path to do what they said they were going to do, and so we are as well.”
International regulations
Historically, owners and architects have driven sustainability in construction. And despite the current legal backdrop, that fact isn’t likely to change, according to Louis Molinini, Americas market lead for project and development services at global real estate investment firm JLL.
In 2024, the firm predicted a 70% shortage of low-carbon offices by 2030, as employees continue to expect their employers to provide sustainable and productive working spaces.
“From a constriction trend perspective, environmental sustainability will continue to be a long-term and immediate priority in construction projects,” Molinini wrote in a recent article on Construction Dive. “It’s reasonable to expect in 2025 that sustainable design and operations will continue to shape project requirements.”
At Skanska, Caplan agreed that owners aren’t pulling back when it comes to sustainability, and neither is the company.
“Being in 13 countries, including the U.S., doesn't mean that changes what we have to deliver on for our own internal efforts and policies, governance and all of that,” Caplan said.
Part of that impact, Caplan said, was the result of Skanska’s, and owners’, presences in the European Union, which has historically maintained strict sustainability standards. That said, on Feb. 26, the EU adopted a package of proposals that would drastically reduce the number of companies that need to be compliant with the sustainability laws.
Despite the regulatory shift, Caplan said the changes won’t affect the company’s reporting schedule and timelines, and that it was staying the course on its sustainability efforts.
“What we have put in place so far and our plans to do even more are important to achieving our stated commitments and goals, as well as those of our customers,” Caplan said.
Standards abound
Codes and standards also play a role in the drive to create sustainable buildings in the U.S., said Tom Poeling, director of energy and sustainability for Kansas City, Missouri-based mechanical contractor U.S. Engineering. But Poeling also noted that when clients want to build to independent climate or sustainability standards, those are usually a step above code.
Poeling pointed to Building Performance Colorado, a state-run initiative to test for benchmarking and performance standards that are intended to reduce emissions in buildings across the state.
“There's been a lot of conversation around changing the expectation, getting away from code minimum and more toward the state's Building Performance Standard as a minimum performance requirement,” Poeling said.
But confusion can abound — changing codes, requirements and technology create a lot of moving parts, not to mention larger policy impacts.
“If you're talking construction or you're talking about the design community, everybody is aware of market-level changes that have been thrown at us, and [is] trying to figure out how to achieve the right result,” Poeling said.
