Black & Veatch Earns Perfect Score From Human Rights Campaign for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Efforts

For third year in a row, company gets top marks on annual scorecard assessing LGBTQ workplace equality

OVERLAND PARK, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Affirming its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in its workforce, global infrastructure solutions leader Black & Veatch proudly announces it has received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2021 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) for the third consecutive year, cementing its designation as a “Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality.”

As the nation’s foremost benchmarking survey and report measuring corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ workplace equality, the CEI ranks companies across four central pillars. Those include non-discrimination policies, equitable benefits for LGBTQ workers and their families, support of an inclusive culture, and corporate social responsibility. Black & Veatch’s efforts in satisfying those criteria earned it a perfect ranking, joining the ranks of 767 major U.S.-based businesses that earned top marks.

“We proudly welcome the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s recognition as affirmation of our belief that companies that embrace a variety of backgrounds and perspectives are more successful and offer workplace experiences that drive better employee engagement and retention,” said Steve Edwards, Black & Veatch’s CEO. “As an employee-owned company that’s more than a century old, we believe deeply in respecting and appreciating every voice.”

The latest recognition from the Human Rights Campaign burnishes the company’s reputation for DE&I. In 2019, Black & Veatch CEO Steve Edwards signed the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion™ pledge, the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advancing workplace D&I. The pledge reflects the company’s commitment to nurturing a trusting workplace that values inclusiveness, enables difficult conversations about diversity and inclusion, expands education about unconscious bias, and examines practices designed to create an inclusive work environment.

In 2020, Forbes named Black & Veatch to its annual list of Best Employers for Diversity, recognizing the company’s commitment to enabling a diverse and inclusive workforce.

Recently, while announcing sustainability pledges that include achieving carbon neutrality by 2025, Black & Veatch said its strategic plan also called for commitments to continue cultivating and embracing an inclusive, diverse workplace, reflecting the priorities of the company’s employee-owners and clients. Black & Veatch is supporting this effort in part through the Black & Veatch Employee Resource Group program (ERG) that also fulfills key requirements for the CEI score through its members’ advocacy for equitable benefits across populations. Also contributing to the latest CEI score was the Black & Veatch Pride ERG’s support of celebratory, informative programming that included a month of virtual Pride celebrations in 2020, as well as longstanding inclusivity engagement in conjunction with other ERGs.

Alphonso David, the Human Rights Campaign’s president, said that during a year marked by “the previously unimaginable impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to a long overdue reckoning with racial injustice,” many businesses across the United States “stepped up and continued to prioritize and champion LGBTQ equality.”

The past year “has shown us that tools like the CEI are crucial in the work to increase equity and inclusion in the workplace, but also that companies must breathe life into these policies and practices in real and tangible ways,” David added. “Thank you to the companies that understand protecting their LGBTQ employees and consumers from discrimination is not just the right thing to do – but the best business decision.”

For more information about career opportunities with Black & Veatch, please visit: https://www.bv.com/careers.

Editor’s Notes:

• In 2019, Forbes named Black & Veatch one of America’s best large employers, one of America's best employers for diversity, and one of America's best employers for women.
• The full 2020 CEI report is available online at https://www.hrc.org/resources/corporate-equality-index.

About Black & Veatch

Black & Veatch is an employee-owned engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company with a more than 100-year track record of innovation in sustainable infrastructure. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people in over 100 countries by addressing the resilience and reliability of our world's most important infrastructure assets. Our revenues in 2019 were US$3.7 billion. Follow us on www.bv.com and on social media.