Supporting Community Quality of Life – The main purpose of this project was to upgrade infrastructure that provides critical services to the community. DEN is one of the busiest airports in the world, and this project supports continued access to its operations for mass transportation. DEN also provides convenient, integrated access to other active and shared transportation options within the community. To mitigate any potential negative impacts associated with this improvement project, the project team worked with key stakeholders to better understand their needs, challenges, and goals. The project team then developed and implemented a construction management plan that outlined strategies to address negative impacts, including mechanisms for soliciting feedback, performance monitoring, and reporting.

Developing Local Skills & Capabilities – This project allowed DEN an opportunity to develop workforce skills and capabilities both at the project level and the general local level. At the project level, DEN used this project to pilot and train for implementation of the Envision Sustainable Infrastructure Framework. This will lay the groundwork to support DEN’s long-term commitment to improving the sustainability of its airport infrastructure. More broadly, the project team worked with the local workforce development agency to provide training opportunities to support specific skills and capacity needs. DEN has now committed to continuing these efforts outside the delivery of this project to support the long-term development of depressed, underemployed, and disadvantaged local communities.

Demonstrating Leadership in Sustainability – From project design through to construction, the project team and owner demonstrated a continuous commitment to sustainability to manage environmental, social, and economic performance goals. The team hosted a collaborative interdisciplinary kick-off meeting to discuss project sustainability goals and developed a project-level Sustainability Management Plan that aligns with DEN’s organizational-level sustainability plans but is tailored to the scale and complexity of this project. The project team also developed a change management process to remain flexible and adaptable to any changes in the project conditions and prioritized transparent and proactive communication through periodic project performance reviews. Ongoing meetings were held with key stakeholders and subject matter experts to identify and address project concerns and potential risks that might impact sustainability performance.

Reducing Construction Waste – Waste diversion is defined as a combination of measures taken to both reduce waste and to divert waste from landfills to other facilities for recycling or reuse. The project team set an initial conservative target to divert at least 75% of construction waste and created a tool to track construction waste by identifying potential waste materials as well as receiving agents or locations for waste diversion. The project team also included a requirement for the construction contractor to develop and implement a construction waste management plan that provides a record of calculated results compared to diversion goals. The selected construction contractor, Millstone Weber, not only developed the waste management plan, but actually raised the waste diversion target from 75% to 95% in order to improve performance. As part of the waste reduction efforts, all concrete panels removed as part of this project were crushed for reuse on future projects at DEN.

Protecting the Natural World – The project team evaluated potential impacts to surface water and groundwater quality and established standards, specifications, and processes to preserve water resources and prevent contamination. This included monitoring performance, not only during construction, but also throughout operations. The project was also designed to use native plant species that do not require the application of pesticides or fertilizers for landscape maintenance.