

Benjamin Urban
CEO / DIRTT Environmental Solutions Ltd.
A global leader in industrialized construction, DIRTT designs and custom manufactures sophisticated and flexible interior spaces. Whether its solutions are for office work, leisure, education, health care or other uses, DIRTT is dedicated to helping clients build flexible and ecologically sound spaces. Rebounding from the workplace and market disruptions of Covid as a leaner and more efficient company, DIRTT is setting a course for growth.
Benjamin Urban believes the world needs a new way to build.
As CEO of DIRTT Environmental Solutions Ltd., Urban and his colleagues at the Calgary-based industrialized, interior-construction and design company are keenly aware of something that most people aren’t.
The biggest contributor — 37% — to climate-changing greenhouse gasses is our “built world”, Urban said. Those human-made or modified structures that provide people us with living, working, and recreational spaces require large amounts of natural resources to build, operate and maintain.
DIRTT, which designs and manufactures sophisticated and bespoke modular interiors for uses as diverse as public and private offices, healthcare, education and aviation, is dedicated to reducing the impact of its operations and helping clients create built spaces that are energy efficient, adaptable and sustainable over the long term.
Environmental Sustainability
The need for such spaces is speeding up as companies and governments rush to improve their environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards. “Never before has the construction industry been more in need of the solutions that we deliver, and we’re seeing increased adoption of our method of construction because of it,” Urban told CEO North America. “There isn’t anyone else doing what we are that can match our highly efficient manufacturing processes, our core focus on sustainability and adaptability while also offering custom solutions.”
“The construction industry is changing and DIRTT is very much at the forefront of that, in providing an alternate method to build.”


DIRTT provides solutions for the configuration of building interiors, offering clients access to designers, software and virtual reality visioning of layout options. It will source and manufacture the modular components for delivery and installation on site. Each step of the process and the company’s interactions with suppliers, partners and clients is focused on increasing the reusability and recyclability of its products.
“Because our solutions are designed for portability and reconfiguration — which also extends the sustainability benefits to second, third and fourth generation users — that then contributes to the circular construction material economy,” Urban explained.
Boosting Efficiency & Revenue
Urban, who was hired as CEO in June 2022 has been leading a revitalization of the 20-year-old company. Hit hard like many companies by the revolution in office work caused by Covid lockdowns and a demand from investors for change, under Urban DIRTT has been focused on boosting revenue, cutting costs and increasing reliability and efficiency.
Coming to DIRTT from Agile Interiors, one of DIRTT’s dozens of construction partners in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, he sees the company coming out of the Covid era with rising revenue and excellent opportunities for growth.
Revenue grew 16.2% in 2022 to US$172 million and another 6% to US$182 million in 2023. Meanwhile gross profit margin has more than doubled to 32.7% last year from 15.9 percent a year earlier, a sign manufacturing efficiency is on the rise.
“With that, our sustainability practices have helped our customers reduce their carbon footprints, and advance their own ESG journeys home, simply by building with DIRTT.”




“We’ve already begun on this growth trajectory, and we’re forecasting respectable growth year-over-year,” Urban said. We’re also in the fortuitous position as a manufacturer in that we are currently operating at less than 50% of our existing manufacturing capacity. So, we don’t require additional equipment to double our output.”
“Even more important than the company’s ability to grow quickly is its ability, thanks to its free manufacturing space, to leverage that capacity and continue adding new output and revenue with a minimum of new investment,” he added.
“In the next year and half were absolutely laser focused on the delivery of our strategic growth initiatives.”


Zero Defects, Zero Delays
Urban said DIRTT’s operations team is focused on reaching its three key measures of efficiency: zero manufacturing defects, zero missed deliveries and zero workplace injuries. In the three months ended June 30, the safety incident rate was 0.99, 78% below the industry average. At the same time 99.7% of orders were completed and delivered on time.
“We believe we’re well-positioned to increase output while delivering quality products on time and in full to our end customers,” he explained. “As of today, this is the most efficiently DIRTT has operated in its 20 years of existence.”
DIRTT also uses Key Performance Indicator (KPI) tracking dashboards to provide data analytics. The dashboards are connected between all of DIRTT’s manufacturing facilities in the United States and Canada so monitoring of processes can be done in real time.
With respect to the wider industry, DIRTT, considered in the top 1% of off-site construction manufacturers, is part of a benchmarking program to help other manufacturers improve by providing DIRTT’s KPIs to other companies. This, Urban believes, will help inspire other companies to improve their operations moving the whole industry forward on efficiency and sustainability.
“In the next year and half, we’re absolutely laser focused on the delivery of our strategic growth initiatives,” Urban said. “We began on those at the beginning of 2024 to drive revenue to lean out that excess manufacturing capacity.”
A Technology Company Too
While manufacturing interiors is a key part of DIRTT’s business, it is more than just an industrial company, it is also a technology company and runs a technology platform called ICE. Urban said. The software technology is used for design, automation, manufacturing and delivering its interiors solutions as well as to other manufacturers where DIRTT is the supplier.
“We’re a little different. In addition to being a manufacturing company, we’re also a technology company with our software development platform,” he said. “Our technology really is at the core of what differentiates us.”




That technology is essential to the company’s increasing efficiency and sustainability as well as integrating suppliers and partners into its network. DIRTT must source large volumes of material on unpredictable construction schedules and on ten-day lead times, a lead time that Urban considers “unheard of” in the manufacturing industry for the built environment.
“Our suppliers and our active management are critical to our more than 99% on time and full delivery record,” he said. “It’s not just working with our long-term strategic suppliers but also identifying new ones as we continue to innovate and uncover new material needs.”
“When implemented properly, external strategic partnerships can help drive operational benefits internally as they challenge us to think differently about how we operate.”


Leveraging Partnerships
And, he added, such close cooperation and active management of relationships and supply chains have allowed the company to achieve operational benefits, including reduced costs through strategic negotiation, diversification and improved material utilization, Urban said.
“Our DNA at DIRTT is hard-coded to be able to provide bespoke solutions without increased lead times or custom fees,” he explained. “We can challenge our external partnerships to bring us those challenges that no other manufacturer can deliver.”
With all the uncertainties on the horizon, the challenges to workplace structure, energy transition and social change, construction has to adapt, Urban said.
I think, out of all the changes that we’ve seen, it’s the unknown of what’s coming next that we have to prepare for,” he said. “Being able to build for that uncertainty and pivot in utilizing a system or solution like DIRTT to do so is very much the direction of construction.”





