An agreement comes before any file
A confidentiality agreement is signed before tender documents, rates, productivity data or drawings change hands. If your organisation has its own form, we will sign yours. Where an engagement is through an engineering firm, we work under that firm's agreement with its client.
Data is segregated by project
Every project has its own workspace. Rates, crews, productivity assumptions and commercial data are used for that project only and never carried into another client's work, in any form. Benchmarking draws on published data and on our own historical data only where the source has agreed to anonymised reuse.
No competing bids on the same tender
We will not price the same tender for two bidders. If that conflict would arise, we say so immediately and decline the second enquiry without disclosing that the first exists. The same applies to owner-side and bidder-side work on the same procurement.
People and tools
Where a collaborator is added to match volume, they are bound by the same agreement and given access only to the project they work on. Files are held on access-controlled, encrypted storage. Client documents are not uploaded to third-party AI or translation services without written consent.
Where data sits
Working files are held in Canada, with US-based cloud providers for email and backup. If your agreement or your country's rules require data to stay in a particular jurisdiction, say so and the project will be set up that way before any file is received.
Export control and public procurement
Where documents are subject to export controls, security classification or public-procurement disclosure rules (Canadian federal, US state and federal, EU directives), we follow the client's marking and handling instructions and confirm them in the engagement.
Publication
Nothing about an assignment is published, presented or listed on this website without the client's agreement, other than what is already in the public record. Confidential assignments are listed, if at all, only by sector and estimate class.
Return and destruction
At the end of an assignment your material is returned or destroyed on request, with written confirmation, and any retention period is whatever your agreement sets.
Privacy requests, corrections, accessibility issues and questions about these terms go to:
Emerald Group, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada.