Staying Committed: Ayers Saint Gross Renews Just Disclosure

Ayers Saint Gross made its first Just Disclosure with the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) in 2019 to share more quantitative data about the social equity and justice issues embedded in who we are and how we practice design. We renewed our Just Disclosure in 2021 and continue to reevaluate and renew our disclosure every two years; we’re proud to share we’ve recently renewed our disclosure for 2023.

Just is a voluntary reporting tool developed by the ILFI for organizations to describe operational, social, and financial actions that contribute to equitable outcomes. Our Just Disclosure helps us make and track measurable commitments and is one step in our efforts to advance social equity.

The program currently includes 22 different social justice and equity indicators within 6 categories. Participants in Just must disclose information on at least 16 of the 22 indicators, and can only opt out of at most one indicator per category. Ayers Saint Gross has now disclosed information on every indicator for the second time.

A benefit of the Just Disclosure renewal process is that it provides perspective on our continual growth and change year after year. Ayers Saint Gross is on a consistent journey to increase inclusion, diversity, equity, and access within our projects, our firm, the design professions, and our communities. Fundamentally, we believe design should solve problems for everyone and we hope that the transparency of our Just Disclosure inspires others to engage in critical discourse about equity in design as well as how these issues manifest in the built environment.

Our 2023 renewal continues the excellence we’ve tracked in a number of the indicators, including Engagement, Full-Time Employment, Pay Scale Equity, Freedom of Association, Gender Pay Equity, Well-Being, Retirement Provision, Training/Education, Positive Products, and Equitable Purchasing. We’re most excited about the areas in which we’ve seen improvement – Charitable Giving and Supply Chain.

Diving more deeply into Supply Chain, this indicator celebrates organizations that develop policies, programs, and practices that improve social and environmental responsibility across their supply chains. At Ayers Saint Gross, the majority of our supply chain consists of the procurement of sub-contracted design services from consultants such as engineers, code consultants, and other designers.

We build relationships with complementary subconsultants, looking for organizations that are similarly committed to positive societal and environmental impacts who will help us to produce the highest caliber, most impactful work. Whether projects have defined goals for the participation of minority business enterprises or not, we work to build robust teams that engage diverse backgrounds and experiences to deliver our projects.

We’ve formalized various internal tracking mechanisms to help us understand how our various sub-consultants identify and are actively cataloguing information such as minority ownership status, Just Disclosure and/or B Corp designation, as well as signatory status to a variety of sustainability-related commitments including the AIA2030 Commitment, the Architecture and Design Materials Pledge, MEP 2040, and SE 2050. We are using this information to increase our awareness of our spending patterns and identify opportunities for goal setting aligned with our commitments to carbon neutrality, data, design, equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice.

We remain committed on our journey to increase equity, diversity, and inclusion in the design professions and will continue to renew our Just Disclosure at each two-year cycle as we continue to make progress within the indicators and beyond.