Community Benefit Agreement (CBA)

How It Works

Our reporting engine works hard, so you don’t have to.

What is the Community Benefit Agreement?

The City of Vancouver's Community Benefit Agreement (CBA) Policy is designed to ensure that large-scale developments contribute to local hiring and social procurement. It requires developers to make best efforts to hire from equity-seeking groups and source at least 10% of their materials, goods, and services from social enterprises or local businesses. The policy aims to reduce poverty, improve economic security, and support workforce development by promoting inclusive job creation and supplier diversity. Vancouver was the first major Canadian city to introduce a standardized CBA policy, aligning with federal and provincial initiatives​.

More information can be found here.

Current Projects

BC Housing 1st and Clark - Chandos Construction

Nisto and CBA

Nisto offers a comprehensive suite of data management tools tailored for vendors involved in projects that must be compliant with CBA reporting requirements. Nisto’s anonymized Matched Diversity Analysis (AMDA) tool, particularly Nisto People, is developed to align with the Community Benefit Agreements's standards for the ethical collection and reporting of diverse identity information.

Leveraging Nisto equips vendors with standardized processes for data collection and reporting, effectively minimizing legal risks by securing employees' identity data against unauthorized access. Nisto’s solutions are designed to be universally applicable, ensuring seamless compliance with project requirements for all vendors, regardless of their operational scale or sophistication.

Furthermore, Nisto's tools are developed as turn-key solutions, facilitating every vendor in accurately capturing the necessary information with minimal effort. This approach not only respects and protects employee privacy by offering a secure environment for declaring diverse identities but also provides substantial benefits for employers. It simplifies integration with existing systems, ensuring efficient and professional compliance with project standards. Through Nisto, vendors gain an indispensable resource for meeting project obligations responsibly and efficiently.

Resources for Vendors

Project RFP’s

Language for vendors to include in your RFP’s or Correspondence with your Vendors and Suppliers to ensure they understand the requirements of the [INSERT PROJECT] project related to CBA reporting.

Community Benefit Agreement Reporting

The [INSERT PROJECT] project is being piloted under a novel initiative called the Community Benefits Agreement with the City of Vancouver.  

The objective of the CBA is to baseline and increase the numbers of Indigenous and underrepresented people employed in construction and increase the skilled workforce in construction through apprenticeships and certified tradespeople.

What this means to you is mandatory monthly reporting on the employment hours and wages paid to Indigenous and underrepresented employment with and without trade affiliations.  This reporting needs to be provided as a component to progress reporting.  

Due to the complexity of collecting diverse identities, reporting in an apples-to-apples basis across hundreds of vendors the project has engaged Nisto and their tools to standardize the process and reporting for all.  


The process is outlined at
www.nisto.io/covcba

This is a mandatory requirement.  Please indicate in your bid submission you understand the requirements of this process and compliance with EIDA reporting through Nisto.


Job Ads

The language that may be used in job ads when hiring employees that is respectful of unique diverse identities.

[Company Name] values diversity and is committed to an inclusive workplace. We welcome applications from individuals who identify with underrepresented groups, including women, persons with disabilities, visible minorities, LGBTQ2S+ community members, youth ages 16 to 24, and Indigenous Peoples (First Nation, Métis, and/or Inuit). To help us foster a diverse team, please indicate in your application if you identify as belonging to one or more of these groups by indicating 'I identify with an underrepresented group'. This self-identification will be kept confidential and used solely for the purpose of supporting our diversity and inclusion efforts.

Frequently Asked Questions