The ultimate aim of sustainability is to achieve enduring positive value across social, economic and environmental dimensions. For URS Asia Pacific and our clients, consideration of the three dimensions of sustainability is becoming more and more relevant to organisational strategy, products and services, individual projects and operational processes.

Enduring positive social, economic and environmental outcomes are not achieved through business as usual approaches. URS believes that the implementation of sustainability principles and practices relies on three key ways of working to drive the performance and behaviours of an organisation, and to ensure employee and community ownership.

For URS, a sustainable business means integrating sustainability practices into our own operations and delivering projects with an economic, social and environmental legacy of which our clients, employees and communities can be proud. In delivering a sustainable business, we will apply the following principles:

• Sustainability is integrated in all of our decision making
• We involve all of our employees and stakeholders
• We seek innovative solutions.

To assist URS and our clients to implement sustainability across all operations, we have developed a sustainability framework —3i— that represents the outcomes and enablers for implementing sustainability.

Achieving 3 organisational outcomes:

SOCIAL
Fair, respectful and beneficial practices for employees and, the communities in which an organisation conducts its business.

ECONOMIC
Economic benefits enjoyed by the organisation, its customers and stakeholders and further along the value chain.

ENVIRONMENTAL
Using resources wisely and reducing direct and indirect impacts on the natural environment from products and services; working to enhance the environment.

Utilising 3 enablers:

INVOLVEMENT
Recognition that sustainability cannot be achieved, nor significant progress made towards it without the support and involvement of organisational and community stakeholders.

INNOVATION
Net benefits across all key outcomes cannot be achieved with business as usual thinking. We need to develop smart solutions that provide better sustainability outcomes for the environment, and the communities in which we operate.

INTEGRATION
Sustainability outcomes are not about trade-offs but rather about achieving the effective integration of environmental, social and economic considerations in decision making and project management.

The 3i framework will support URS people to deliver projects the legacy of which our clients, our employees and our communities can be proud.

More than just a buzzword, sustainability is a critical factor in organisational success. At URS sustainability is not just about being green; it is about smart ideas, effective long-term solutions and strong commercial outcomes.