SPI SMARTsustainability Firm Certification: Be the Best. Prove It.

Only the Best Organizations Can Deliver the Best Projects

Today, clients demand more than ever before. Whether their target is LEED, Net Zero, the Living Building Challenge, or you strive to meet the 2030 Commitment – the stakes are high. Delivering “LEED on demand” is simply not enough anymore.

Differentiation is key. Everyone makes claims when it comes to sustainability and green building. Yet many companies struggle to maintain momentum, get stuck on particular challenges, or end up achieving “random acts of sustainability” but not the comprehensive integration needed to produce consistent and optimal results. This concern for delivering consistent, high quality sustainability services is why many building owners have endorsed the SPI Certification program and the federal government has adapted the program for HUD’s Affordable Green Initiative.

Change You Can Measure

The SPI Certification process provides companies with a roadmap and methodology to improve the effectiveness of their organizations and the performance of their projects. As an independent, trusted 3rd party, SPI gives a supportive “push” from the outside to hold companies accountable, support leadership in their efforts, and weave disparate initiatives into a cohesive tapestry of sustainability and competitive advantage. SPI continually shares best practices and successful strategies and provides metrics and processes to keep the pressure on – just enough – to cause positive change. This isn’t just any kind of change; it’s change that can be measured, recognized and taken to the bank.

The Five Performance Areas

We’ve been helping companies transform themselves for over a decade, so we know what the ingredients of a truly green company are and how to measure them.  The SPI Evaluation criteria were born out of more than a dozen years of work with clients of all shapes and sizes, learning from their successes – and yes, failures – and observing the characteristics that differentiated the true leaders. It all boils down to five key performance areas.

  1. Leadership: It all starts here, with commitment, vision and clarity about what sustainability means to your company, beyond marketing claims. It’s about establishing accountability structures, well-defined goals, and strategies to meet them. If you have strong leadership, everyone at every level in the company knows that sustainability is a priority and understands how their role contributes to meeting your collective goals.
  2. Partnering: Your product is only as good as the team that creates it. You work hard to set and prioritize your goals; it’s equally important to make sure that your partners are on the same page and can align with you instead of working at cross purposes. Care and proactive nurturing of critical relationships is necessary to optimize results.
  3. Infrastructure: Human resources, information technology, communication, professional development, knowledge management, internal standards and resources must all be aligned with the company’s goals for project performance to be realized. These elements are the foundation upon which project delivery is built so they must be carefully considered.
  4. Project Delivery: Relying on a few “rock star” employees to be the green champions doesn’t work anymore. Percentage of LEED plaques is not an adequate measure. Every team, on every project, has to deliver a consistent, high quality sustainability service. Effective, collaborative processes and consistent methodologies are keys to achieving the consistency and goals that clients demand.
  5. Outcomes: It’s all about results. Measuring your corporate footprint and the performance of your projects and continually raising the bar is the best way to demonstrate quality and commitment to your clients.

Review the complete SPI Criteria

The Roadmap to Continuous Improvement has four steps: Registration, Assessment, Planning and Filling Gaps, and Audit. Read about our process in more detail.

Getting From Here to There

At SPI, we are all about you: accelerating your company’s path to success, giving you the tools and resources you need, and recognizing your achievements. We make it a priority to keep SPI free from unnecessary bureaucracy and cumbersome documentation. This allows us to invest in your success. We’ll help you get there.

Companies in the Certification program generally fall into one of two camps:

  • You’re a star! Companies who want recognition for their leadership and commitment – and validation of their status of excellence in professional practice. For you, SPI Certification provides the differentiation that you deserve in a market place full of false claims!
  • You want to “get there”! Companies that want to raise the bar internally, truly institutionalize sustainability in their culture, systems and processes, and make sustainability a competitive advantage.

Check out who’s already in the program on our Client & Program Participants page.

Intrigued by the Possibilities? What are Next Steps?