We realize that our main role on a job is to be a trusted partner for the clients who select us to build their projects. One of the duties that accompanies that selection is living out our values in the work we do, both for clients and in our own operations.

Our values focus this month is on stewardship, and we’re proud to showcase our commitment to stewardship in the field and in our home office.

Our recently completed project with UNMC and the Omaha Public Power District demonstrates that commitment on a few different levels.

As always, we strive to be good stewards of client resources, and this project was no exception. Beginning in September, Boyd Jones crews installed about 1,500 solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on the rooftops of three UNMC buildings: the Michael F. Sorrell Center for Health Science Education, the Truhlsen Eye Institute, and the Harold M. and Beverly Maurer Center for Public Health.

Now that it’s generating electricity, the project represents the largest rooftop solar project in the state of Nebraska. UNMC’s solar installation introduces about 500kW of new, renewable electric generation capacity for its campus and is the latest major piece of the organization’s pledge to become carbon-neutral by 2030. The 2030 plan also calls for the organization to achieve zero-waste status by that year.

Meanwhile, ratepayer-owned OPPD is relying on a mix of wind and solar to meet its goal of providing at least 50% of its retail load with renewables while reducing its carbon intensity by 20%, both by 2030.

Despite the many differences between the organizations, UNMC, OPPD, and Boyd Jones have much in common when it comes to sustainability goals.

Thanks to systems efficiencies, its own rooftop solar array, and Renewable Energy Credits from Nebraska wind projects, Boyd Jones’ home at the Rail & Commerce Building is carbon neutral. We’re also proud to announce a new recycling program that represents a building-wide commitment to zero waste.

At our home office downtown, we’ve recently committed to a zero-waste recycling program through which we will divert the vast majority of waste generated in the Rail & Commerce Building into compost or recycling streams. With a goal of diverting as much waste as possible into these streams and away from local landfills, we are confident that we will significantly shrink our waste footprint from where it has been historically — if we don’t virtually eliminate it altogether.

As work continues to de-carbonize the global economy, Boyd Jones is proud to do its part in creating a more sustainable future with partners like UNMC, for the greater Omaha community, and the world at large.