You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: As the operator indicated, please limit your Q&A participation to one question.
This will help maximize participation during our time together.
We appreciate your interest in Vulcan Materials and hope that you and your families continue to be safe and healthy.
I want to begin by saying that our performance in the first quarter was a very promising start to the year.
Demand in our markets continues to improve and our team executed well as evidenced by our financial results.
Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes the gain on sale from our reclaimed quarry in California, was $244 million, up 22% compared to last year.
This strong growth was driven in part by a 3% increase in aggregate shipments.
Despite weather impacts across Texas and parts of the Southeast in February, we experienced a pickup in shipments and March proved to be a strong month.
Residential starts continue to accelerate and highway starts also increased due to improved lettings in the third and fourth quarters of last year.
We've experienced an increase in both the number of jobs and the shipping speed in the heavy nonresidential space which is also the most aggregate intensive.
And finally, some of the jobs that had been postponed last year have started.
With year-over-year improvement across our footprint pricing was the second driver of our EBITDA growth.
Freight-adjusted aggregates pricing increased by 2% in the quarter.
Adjusted for mix, the increase was 1.3%.
This was as expected since we were shipping work that have been bid in the middle of the pandemic when there was uncertainty and a lack of demand visibility.
As our 2021 price increases gain traction, we will see pricing improvement throughout the year.
The third driver of EBITDA growth and the one most within our control was our exceptional cost performance in the quarter.
Aggregate total cost of sales per ton was 2% lower than last year's first quarter.
And cash cost of sales per ton declined by 3%.
Cost control like this is an accomplishment and requires considerable discipline from our operators.
The team focused hard on operational execution.
And as a result, all of our operating parameters in the quarries improved year-over-year.
We were pleased with the meaningful impact from our four strategic disciplines, which will continue to mature.
The most compelling metric, continues to be our strong unit margin gains across the footprint.
Aggregates, cash gross profit per ton, increased by 9%.
This demonstrates the attractive operational earnings power of our aggregates business, when demand is combined with strong execution on our four strategic disciplines.
Overall, our operating results this quarter, helped drive a 90 basis point improvement in our return on invested capital.
Suzanne will provide further comments on this and other aspects of our financial performance.
Let's now turn to our view of the end markets and then we'll cover how, that influence our outlook for the full year.
Broadly speaking, the demand environment improved considerably over the last few months.
Construction starts, as measured by Dodge, got better along with other leading indicators, like the Dodge Momentum Index and ABI.
Construction employment levels continue to improve as well.
Residential construction remains the strongest end market.
There is pent-up demand for houses and new subdivisions are being built with more to come.
The market fundamentals of low interest rates and reduced supply are still in place, which foreshadows continued growth.
Housing starts are growing faster in Vulcan-served markets.
The outlook for our nonresidential end markets remains limited.
However, our quote activity has increased and leading indicators are improving, which suggest that a turnaround is happening.
The strongest nonresidential sector relates to e-commerce and technology and encompasses data centers, warehouses and distribution facilities.
According to Dodge, 90% of the growth in this sector will occur in Vulcan-served markets.
Majority of non-res starts currently fits within this category, but we believe, a strong residential market combined with an increasingly open economy will drive additional demand in other nonresidential sectors.
With respect to highways, state budgets and lettings are progressing as anticipated.
We are seeing the improvement in lettings from the second half of 2020, now turning to shipments.
The COVID-19 relief funds have provided a backstop for any loss transportation revenues for highways.
Our country's leadership continues to work on an infrastructure package.
Both parties have proposed substantial increases in highway funding and this is a priority for both the Democrats and the Republicans.
To summarize, our view of end markets, demand is improving.
We see evidence of this both on the ground with our customers and in the data from leading indicators.
As a result, we've upgraded our aggregates volume guidance for 2021 to a range of 1% to 4% growth compared to 2020.
Excluding the gain on the sale of the California property, we now expect full year adjusted EBITDA of between $1.38 billion and $1.46 billion.
As we look forward to consider opportunities, we have three paths to growth, with higher returns.
Those paths are organic growth, M&A and greenfields.
I'll take each in turn.
First, organic growth is a critical part of any strategy, because it offers the most attractive and compelling value proposition on a risk-adjusted basis.
We have the best geographic footprint in the industry and the best operators in the industry but we are not satisfied.
Our four strategic disciplines are designed to accelerate this organic growth strategy.
And the benefits are clear as we grow our unit profitability.
Second, we regularly review an active list of M&A targets.
Last year the M&A market basically shut down.
But it's reopened this year.
We have a long history of making both large and small acquisitions when they are a good strategic fit.
Since 2014, we've completed more than two dozen value-enhancing acquisitions in some of the fastest-growing markets in the country.
And finally, we had a long and successful history of developing and opening new aggregate locations.
This allows us to pinpoint the location of aggregates reserves in growth quarters where there is no acquisition opportunity.
Additional benefits include more control over timing of capital investment and not paying a premium for the assets.
We like having a balance between organic and inorganic growth.
It provides a high degree of flexibility and is an important part of our capital allocation process and our ability to increase our return on invested capital.
I'd like to start by highlighting four key areas to consider this quarter.
Our aggregates unit profitability expansion, return on invested capital, balance sheet strength and the California land sale.
Our aggregates gross profit per ton increased by 12% to $4.82.
We believe this is important because improving the operational profitability of existing locations generally comes with limited capital investment as compared to other growth engines.
When the improvements are both sustainable and widespread across the footprint, significant value is created.
Our strategic disciplines are making an impact and we have a good track record of execution.
Over the past three years our compound annual growth rate for gross profit per ton was 7%.
The second key area is return on invested capital.
As Tom mentioned, the 90 basis point improvement in the quarter pushed our return to 14.8% for the trailing 12 months ended March 31.
While a higher returns profile is always good, the way in which the improvement is achieved is also important.
As an example, the first quarter's ROIC gain was comprised of a 1% increase in invested capital and a 7% increase in adjusted EBITDA.
This further highlights the importance of the unit profitability discussed earlier.
Over the past three years, our trailing 12 months ROIC has improved by 280 basis points, driven by a 4% compound annual growth rate in invested capital and an 11% compound annual growth rate in adjusted EBITDA.
The third area is the balance sheet.
Our balance sheet strength has created significant optionality and flexibility as we consider our capital allocation priorities, our balanced approach to growth and shareholder returns.
Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio is 1.4 times, and we have nearly $900 million of cash on the balance sheet.
Our debt has a weighted average maturity of 15 years, with no significant maturities in the near-term.
And as always, we will continue to operate the business for the long term.
We will not rush decisions to invest, just because extra capital is available.
The last of the four key areas, I wanted to highlight, was the sale of the reclaimed quarry in Southern California.
The sale generated $182 million of net proceeds and a pre-tax gain of $115 million.
One of the strengths of our aggregates-focused business are the multiple opportunities to create value, and the life cycle of this quarry demonstrates that well.
Now so far on the call, we focused entirely on the aggregates business.
So let's shift briefly to non-aggregates.
Gross profit in those segments collectively was $5.6 million in the quarter or $2 million less than last year.
The severe weather mentioned earlier affected both asphalt volumes in Alabama, Tennessee and Texas, and concrete volumes in Virginia.
With respect to the cost of diesel, it really wasn't much of a factor in the quarter, because the unit price of diesel was relatively unchanged from last year's first quarter.
For the full year, we now anticipate that the cost of diesel fuel will be a headwind of approximately $25 million, reflecting higher prices since the start of the year.
The last time we spoke with you we expected that our effective tax rate for 2021 would be 21%.
We now expect the full year rate to be between 23% and 24%, following a 27% rate in the first quarter.
The higher rate in Q1 and the revised expectation for the full year resulted from Alabama's recent change in the law, which modified the methodology by which a company apportions income to the state.
This change had the effect of reducing our ability to fully utilize certain net operating loss carry-forwards in Alabama.
And as a result, we recorded a $14 million charge in the first quarter.
We will continue to operate Vulcan for the long-term.
This means, staying focused on our strong local execution, driving unit margin expansion, maintaining a strong financial position and improving our returns.

user
qtrly total revenues $1,068.3 million versus $1,049.2 million.
sees 2021 aggregates shipments to increase between 1 percent and 4 percent compared to 2020.

assistant