Why People Are the Key to Sustainability

When it comes to sustainability, Henry Nutt III, preconstruction executive at Southland Industries, believes people are the key.

Nutt served as chair of the board of directors for the Lean Construction Institute (LCI) from 2023 to 2024. LCI has been around for more than 20 years and was initially focused on construction projects for the health care industry. Not only does LCI focus on reducing waste and applying sustainable techniques to construction, but a key tenet of the organization is “respect for people.”

“If you don’t respect and trust the people you are working with, it is next to impossible to realize the true value of what you are trying to accomplish for your stakeholders,” reads LCI’s website. “LCI helps organizations with exercises and training to encourage respect and trust amongst all team members so they are able to implement all Lean practices effectively.”

To that end, LCI supports individuals within construction companies focus on continuous improvement and maintaining the cutting edge, including building a healthy and respected workforce. The support includes promotion of adopted behaviors, tools and collaboration.

Retaining people may not seem like a sustainability strategy, but in the face of ongoing labor shortages, investing in training and retaining talent enables projects to operate more efficiently and align with lean principles, Nutt explained.

“We [Southland Industries] don’t just go out and do every job,” Nutt said. “We’re very intentional about the type of work we do. One of our executives always told me that the type of work we pursue affects what our people become. We want to create environments where people can be their best version of themselves and perform work at a high level.”

The Role of Preconstruction in Sustainability

As a preconstruction executive, Nutt’s daily job is directly tied to Southland’s sustainability goals. Some of his role involves making sure the company has a competitive advantage on pursuits, but he’s also focused on waste removal and prefabrication, ensuring projects are executed in an efficient manner. On the people side, Nutt emphasized that getting all the stakeholders in a room early in the process can prevent delays down the line.

“We have folks on the preconstruction side called constructability leads that get a chance to review some of the design concepts and give valuable input to the team about [the design],” he said. “That’s a huge role. … We’re making decisions that are affecting the execution process. Once they get to the point where they’re installing work, it’s hard to undo those things. We can’t solve every problem, but the more cohesive our teams are, the more collaborative we are, the more transparent we are, the more trust we have, the better we execute.”

Why Construction Mentorship Is Essential 

Nutt has worked at Southland for the past 18 years in two roles. He said the company places sustainability and people within their core values.

“When I came here, one of the first things that happened to me, I was placed into this training where they take some of their new leadership and send them away for about a week to learn about Southland and meet other company leaders,” he said. “They invested in me, and I had never had that happen before … It opened my eyes to this a different kind of company, and they’re proactive and intentional about training and development.”

Mentorship is a key part of sustainability for Nutt. With interns at Southland, he has created an open-door policy where they can come and ask any question they may have. Currently, he is mentoring a young engineer, helping her find her footing within both the industry as a whole and Southland in general.

“This industry has been notorious for really not taking care of people,” he said. “Not because we have a vendetta to not take care of people, but it’s just been an accepted behavior, and it’s been poor behavior. But now there’s a huge effort around supporting people. How do we make this a more welcoming industry? Because although we build buildings and we’re connecting parts and pieces and components, we’re doing it with people. I think there’s a big consensus now that people understand we are the common denominator, and all the tools and all the technology and all the things that we can do to make our jobs easier, it’s still done by predominantly human beings.”

He credits his own mentor, Victor Sanvido, who has played a role in teaching him lean construction principles, particularly regarding managing and respecting the people doing the work.

“He’s one of the persons I would point to as an advocate for all things lean and how to remove waste,” Nutt said. “From a practical standpoint and technical standpoint and people standpoint. Waste can be two people not agreeing and never coming to terms, costing everyone money and maybe affecting the end product.”

Knowing Your Why

For new members of the construction industry looking to make more sustainable moves on their jobsites, Nutt said: “Go for it 100%. Don’t let anyone talk you out of it. Know your why, absolutely know your why. Don’t jump on a bandwagon with someone else’s why unless it ties to your why. You know, so know why you’re doing it, and understand it and be able to dissect that so that you know the reason that it means something to you. Because you’re going to get resistance. You’re going to get people who challenge it, and you need to understand why it’s important to you and know that when you do take that stance and that position, that people will begin to be affected by that decision.”

Drawing Future Generations to the Trades 

The biggest change Nutt hopes to see in the industry in the coming years is for it to reflect more of the general population in its makeup. He believes hiring more women and people of color, from the jobsite to the boardroom, will help alleviate shortages.

“The answer lies in the problem,” he said. “And part of the problem is we don’t have enough [women and people of color] looking at this industry as a viable career option.”

Nutt said education and reaching students is a key to making this happen. But, he said, parents, teachers and the government also need to see the trades as a steady career path so that students have the opportunities to learn about them.

“When we think of construction, we tend to think of just somebody working in the dirt, and that may be true,” he said. “But, there are people that do a lot more than that and have very high technical skills and do really well in with their lives. They don’t have college debt to go with it when they finish their five-year program and can get a job anywhere in the world.”

Nutt is the author of “Seven Principles: Creating Your Success in the Construction Industry,” which is directly tied to his passion for getting more people involved in construction. His YouTube channel, “Build & Lead,” focuses on some of the principles in his book as well as personal growth. He also partners with local organizations that host demonstrations of various trades — not just to young people starting out but also to adults looking to make a second career in the trades.