To truly build back better, contractors will have to build back different.

That’s the takeaway from a panel presented during a recent virtual conference where the topics of sustainable investment and infrastructure construction intersected. The event, sponsored by U.K.-based Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, looked at the growing importance of ESG, which stands for Environmental, Social and Governance, an investment approach that screens publicly traded companies for predefined objectives in those three areas. It shuns firms that don’t adhere to such principles or those that operate in industries that are philosophically opposed to them, such as fossil fuels.