Welcome Spring! I love Spring’s sense of renewal and the new project opportunities to create environmental renewal through our work. As the construction season unfolds, I see a tremendous increase in activity for Milestone and across the industry, with a surge in demand creating a domino effect in the marketplace’s capacity to keep pace with the need.

I personally have noticed that there is a growing complexity to the types of projects out there, delays in initiating them, and an overarching shortfall in capacity. When I look to how Milestone can help our clients in these conditions, I look to our approach in being a collaborative contractor.

As a collaborative contractor, we encourage early engagement so we can bring together a team that can create cost-efficient solutions. It is a much smoother approach when you have owners, consultants, and contractors together at the table; the options for a client project are better addressed through this type of collaboration and integrated project approach.

It’s always interesting to have conversations with industry colleagues about trends and directions; where work is declining and aspects of work that are increasing. For Milestone, our projects are seeing some notable trends:

• Collaboration with Indigenous communities

• In my office there is a whiteboard that provides a snapshot of some of our work in progress, and 8 out of 10 projects on the board have an Indigenous component – that truly speaks to the importance of early engagement and collaboration. I am proud that Milestone is a catalyst for these deepening collaborations in creating inclusivity and environmental stewardship for Indigenous communities. Visit our website to see find out more about our partnerships and projects.

• Habitat restoration, shoreline, and climate resiliency projects

• On the West Coast especially, I am seeing an ever-increasing habitat restoration, shoreline, and climate resiliency project portfolio. While the impacts of mother nature (fires, floods, storms,) are creating new sources of cleanup work for our teams, I am optimistic for the future in knowing that the work we do is improving the earth one site at a time.

I am excited to see such a busy construction season ahead and invite you to start a conversation with us. Give us a call. Talk to us about your project challenges or trends you’re seeing, as environmental contractors we are, at our heart, problem-solvers and  together we can bring a “milestone” solution to your project.

Eric