Corporate Sustainability

ESG & SUSTAINABILITY

At Legence, we are creating a future where energy-efficient, healthy, and sustainable buildings are the norm, not the exception.

As an Energy Transition Accelerator™, we are laying the groundwork to bring our legion of companies to capture our collective potential and achieve a prescribed level of excellence. Together, we make the buildings that shape our lives energy efficient, healthier, and more sustainable. Learn about Legence and our Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) approach.
OUR PRINCIPLES OF SERVICE

Our true north for responsible success.

Performance

In everything we do, our work seeks to deliver the highest levels of business, environmental, and asset performance for our clients.

Partnership

Our success is our clients’ success and is always the result of skill, dedication, and collaboration. To achieve our goals, we rely on every stakeholder.

Responsibility

We have a duty of care for our partners and communities. We’re active corporate citizens, working in an equitable and environmentally friendly manner.
our impact

Our impact spans beyond our board rooms and design builds.

We’re supplying our people with industry-leading tools, benefits, and protocols to promote a safe and inclusive workplace, and we are delivering building efficiency at speed and scale to help accelerate the clean energy transition. As an Energy Transition Accelerator™, Legence has an impact that reaches across borders.
OUR RESULTS

Read Our 2024 Sustainability Report

Read the report
ESG / SQ FT
5.5
B+
As an ESG advisor, Legence is maximizing the efficiency of more than 5.5 billion square feet across 22,000+ buildings.
renewable
energy
1.1
GW+
Legence consultants are advising clients on more than 1.1GW of on-site renewable energy projects across the United States.
TOTAL RECORDABLE
INCIDENT RATE
0.59
We created a best-in-class Safety Task Force to act as a foundation for driving safety initiatives and their implementation across Legence. (Industry average: 3.30)
net zero / SQ FT
10
M+
We have undertaken over 10 million square feet of net zero energy design and implemented more than 140MW of renewable energy generation.
Energy Efficiency +
Renewable Projects
$
21
B+
Legence has delivered over $21 billion in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects over the past three years.
Corporate
emissions
-15
%
Legence is committed to achieving a 15% average scope 1 and scope 2 emissions reduction per employee within three years of our fixed base year of 2022.
OUR COMMITMENTS

Taking action for
meaningful progress.

Legence has set clear commitments to increase and prioritize environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics within our strategy to achieve sustainability excellence across our organization. Our commitments cover a range of topics, including safety, health and wellness, climate action, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and strong governance.
Safety

A safety-first culture.

Safety is baked into every business decision.

We pride ourselves on safety; it is a practice ingrained throughout our business units and a promise we keep by supplying our teams with industry-leading tools, equipment, benefits, and protocols.
Safety starts with our leadership and flows into our day-to-day operations. At our facilities, we promote occupant health through improved indoor air quality, access to daylight and natural ventilation, health and wellness amenities, and healthy building materials and furnishings. Legence-wide we have safety communication plans and protocols to help drive our safety-first culture and instill best practices throughout our operations.
OUR COMMITMENTS
Maintaining a safety-first culture, promoting the health and wellness of our team and an incident-free workplace
Spearheading prevention through design in facilities
Prioritizing mentorship and fostering a culture of continuous learning
Environment

Positively impacting the environment.

Strategic decarbonization is reducing our environmental footprint.

The built environment contributes 40% of all the carbon emissions on the planet, so the work we do within our business units makes an impact beyond the United States. In addition to helping our customers reduce their environmental impact, we are working to reduce our own carbon footprint.
Our commitments are how we gauge and track our success. As we continue to grow our organization and develop greater efficiencies throughout our operations, our goals and KPIs will adapt to ensure we are measuring and making progress on material aspects of our business.
OUR COMMITMENTS
Achieving and maintaining carbon neutrality annually, starting in 2024
Achieving net zero status across Legence corporate operations by 2040
Annually reporting our GHG emissions and progress towards net zero
Reducing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions per employee by 15% within three years, from a fixed based year of 2022

Driving towards
Net Zero.

In the same way we advise our clients to develop net zero strategies, Legence is developing interim targets for carbon emissions reduction in advance of our Net Zero by 2040 goal. This roadmap shows our progress to date as well as the initiatives we plan to explore in the future.

Data Collection
Efficiency Optimization
Renewables
Environmental Certificates
Green Power Procurement

Tracking progress and improving operational efficiency.

As an interim milestone on our journey to net zero, Legence has committed to reducing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions per employee by 15% within three years from a fixed base year
of 2022. Using an intensity-based metric enables us to track progress in optimizing efficiency of day-to-day operations at individual business units while continuing to grow sustainably.
Operational
Emissions
30,625
TOTAL MT CO2e
86
Facilities and Offices
883,547
total square feet ( SQFT )
scope 1
Direct emissions from sources owned or controlled by Legence.
54.5%
4.0 %
Natural Gas
0.5 %
Stationary Diesel
50 %
Fleet Fuel
scope 2
Indirect emissions from purchased electricity/steam/heat/cooling.
7.0%
7.0 %
Electricity
scope 3
All other emissions associated with Legence’s activities.
38.5%
0.5 %
Business Travel
36 %
Employee Commuting
2.0 %
Operational Waste
Overall Reduction
Emissions per employee is a comparable metric across Legence’s diverse business units, which vary in size, typical service offerings, and number of fleet vehicles.
15%
4.93
MT CO2e
2022 Emissions per Employee
4.19
MT CO2e
2023 Emissions per Employee
People

Elevating our people.

Our power is our people.

A sustainable world needs big thinkers, and that is exactly who our people are.
Legence’s legacy is defined by our people. We believe we are better together and strive to connect all of our 5.7K+ consultants, engineers, craftspeople, and technicians with the tools and resources that they need to thrive so that we can achieve our collective potential. We continually strive to diversify our workforce, prioritize health and well-being, provide opportunities for growth, and emphasize equity and inclusion for all.
OUR COMMITMENTS
Empowering meaningful and purposeful career pathways to support the development of a resilient workforce
Tracking, maintaining, and reporting on diversity data, placing DEI as a priority
Increasing veteran and under-represented hiring
Fostering charitable giving and sustainable community development
Leadership

Driving strong leadership.

Cultivating a culture of inclusivity and collaboration.

Good governance is the cornerstone of a resilient company, and Legence boasts a talented group of individuals who guide our operations with experience and ethical business practices.
OUR COMMITMENTS
Maintaining a diverse board of directors to embrace diverse experiences and expertise
Creating an executive leadership team, formal committees, and councils to drive strategic initiatives and guide the success of service lines
Adopting sustainable procurement and responsible contractor policies to evaluate environmental and social factors in major purchasing and sourcing
Transparency

Aligning with the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

No Poverty

Every member of the Legence team plays a key part in creating a more sustainable world, and we support our people by paying competitive salaries and contributing to unions.

GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

Legence radically improves the performance of the built environment, making the spaces we occupy healthier and more sustainable. To support the wellness of our employees, partners, and professional communities, we commit to:

Maintaining a ‘safety first’ culture, promoting the health and wellness of our team and an incident free workplace. And promoting occupant health at our facilities through improved indoor air quality, access to daylight and natural ventilation, health and wellness amenities, and healthy building materials and furnishings.

QUALITY EDUCATION

Legence is upskilling our workforce for both technical and vocational positions to promote a well-rounded employee base and to grow our people’s skills for future career development and success. Through our business we also design and build certified green building education facilities to foster healthy, safe, and inclusive learning environments that benefit the communities in which we work.

GENDER EQUALITY

Legence maintains a diverse and experienced Board of Directors and executive team. We also conduct hiring practices that promote diverse hiring pools and will continue to be an equal-opportunity employer. Our training and development is focused on upskilling our workforce and promoting diversity throughout our industry.

AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY

Legence helps our clients innovate and expand their energy infrastructure to enable the adoption of alternative, renewable, and decentralized energy innovations. To date, Legence has helped design and implement more than 140 MW of renewable energy generation.

DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Legence’s supply chain drives economic growth for minority-owned businesses, and we have a successful history acquiring and growing privately held and founder-owned businesses. We are growing our diverse employee base every year and are constantly evolving our practices to use industry-leading tools and procedures that promote safety, efficiency, and innovation in our sector.

INDUSTRY, INNOVATION, AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Our community engagement and technical expertise have generated over $21 billion in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects to date. Legence is a choice building science and engineering solutions provider. We pair sector expertise with creative ingenuity to lead and deliver design-build projects that meet efficiency goals and protect the well-being of occupants.

REDUCED INEQUALITIES

Legence provides career opportunities that are rewarding, respectful and embracing of diverse backgrounds and perspectives. We track, maintain, and report on diversity data. And we remain committed to increase hiring from veteran populations and other historically underrepresented groups.

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES

We have a duty of care for our partners and communities. We’re active corporate citizens, working in an equitable and environmentally friendly manner. As a national leader we play an active role in design and construction of the municipal, university, school, and hospital (MUSH) market, and in that role, we emphasize health and sustainability. Our approach improves operational and energy efficiency and creates high performance buildings while significantly reducing the amount of deferred maintenance. Through our efforts we have helped communities implement their carbon reduction roadmaps through performance contracting, zero energy and zero carbon buildings.

CLIMATE ACTION

Legence is an Energy Transition Accelerator™. Our team radically improves the performance of the built environment by maximizing efficiency consumption. We have adopted climate conscious goals, policies, and processes and embedded them across our organization.

PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS

Legence is a team of experienced solutions providers, working as one to push our clients further and build a future defined—and redefined—by efficiency.

Our success is our clients’ success and is always the result of skill, dedication, and collaboration. To achieve our goals, we rely on every stakeholder. We engage our peers and partners to move the industry forward through advocacy and collaboration.
We are committed to providing regular reporting to stakeholders on activities associated with our business in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG) to drive transparency.
UNSDGs have been adopted by 193 countries and are the world’s shared plan to end extreme poverty, reduce inequality, and protect the planet by 2030. Through our business and ESG approach, we align with 11 of the 17 goals.
2024 Sustainability Report

Planning for the future.

At Legence, we are creating a future where energy-efficient, healthy, and sustainable buildings are the norm, not the exception. Read our annual Sustainability Report and learn how Legence is building a sustainable future—faster.
Read Report