Ayers Saint Gross Renews Just Disclosure

Ayers Saint Gross made our first Just Disclosure with the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) in 2019 to share quantitative data about the ways we practice social equity, inclusion, and belonging in our operations and how we practice design. We renewed our Just Disclosure in 2021 and 2023 and we continue to reevaluate and renew our disclosure every two years. We’re proud to share that we’ve recently renewed our disclosure for 2025 under Just 3.0.

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 inclusion and belonging. The program currently includes 21 different social justice and equity indicators within six categories. Participants in Just must disclose information on each of these 21 indicators.

The Just Disclosure renewal process is beneficial because it provides perspective on our continual growth and change over time. Ayers Saint Gross has long worked to increase inclusion, belonging, and access within our projects, our firm, the design professions, and our communities. Fundamentally, we believe design should solve problems for everyone.

Our 2025 renewal continues the excellence we’ve tracked in several of the indicators, including those related to gender diversity, recruitment, belonging, accessibility, engagement, workforce empowerment, pay scale equity, retirement, professional development, and charitable giving. We’re most excited about the areas in which we’ve seen improvement – racial and ethnic diversity and community connections.

The community connections indicator celebrates organizations that build empowering and restorative relationships with the communities they serve and operate within. At Ayers Saint Gross, we believe that progress begins in our backyard. For that reason, we are committed to shaping our cities and our profession for the better through our work and our actions. We engage our communities by donating resources to organizations whose missions aim to improve the quality of life for all. We create a stronger profession by partnering with schools and educational programs like ACE Mentorship or NOMA to build a pipeline of design professionals who shape the built environment as a career path. We enrich the world through education and volunteering in our communities.

We believe that community engagement is also integral to successful work as planners and designers. Each project is an opportunity to listen to and learn from the many voices: clients, stakeholders, and communities, who will be affected by a project where they live and work. An inclusive engagement process is crucial in empowering confident decision making and advocating for the communities in which we work.

Read a case study of how we engage client voices through design: Honoring Indigenous Voices with Design — Ayers Saint Gross

We hope that the transparency of our Just Disclosure encourages others to think critically about equity in design and how issues of inclusion and belonging manifest in the built environment. Looking ahead, we remain committed to shaping the design professions for the better. We will continue to renew our Just Disclosure at each two-year cycle as we continue to make progress within the indicators and beyond.