Spec Furniture began its journey towards sustainability some years ago, but really stepped it up in 2009. “By properly separating our waste we have increased our waste diversion from 5 per cent to 75 per cent in a matter of months,” says Jed McKie, Design Engineer and leader of environmental initiatives.

Spec Furniture implemented a solid waste management program with the aggressive target of 100 per cent diverted from landfill by 2020. The increase of diversion streams has contributed in large part to their success. For example, particle board is now separated and recycled into bedding for farm animals or burned as bio-fuel by a third party. Diversion of steel, aluminum, cardboard and shrink wrap also resulted in decreases of waste to landfill. Food waste generated on site is now collected and composted either through their vermicomposter or green cone composters, and paper towels are separated and picked up for composting. Disposable cups, plates and cutlery were replaced with compostable alternatives.

Looking down the supply chain and working with suppliers to find waste management solutions offered more diversion opportunities. Offcuts of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) edging used in Spec’s furniture are now separated and recycled by the supplier. Another example is scrap foam, which is now separated and recycled into carpet backing by the supplier.

Reutilization of excess resources has also greatly contributed to Spec’s impressive progress. Plastic laminate offered an innovative reuse project – donation to the local schools, Humber and Sheridan College, for use of students in furniture programs. Excess fabric is donated to a company who makes purses and bags out of them, and overspray powder from the powder coating line is collected and reused on selected parts in products. Solid wood is separated for use by employees as firewood, and employees were given reusable stainless steel water bottles, which has dramatically reduced the use of disposable plastic bottles on site.

Reducing hazardous waste was also targeted by Spec Furniture. Spec recently made the switch to an Ultraviolet (UV) water based finishing system. This new system drastically reduced their hazardous waste and production of air emissions during and after the process, by replacing a toxic solvent with water. In 2008, Spec Furniture purchased 3840 litres of solvent for reducing and cleaning, which has now been entirely replaced with tap water.

Recognizing that these programs are only successful to the extent that they are utilized, all of these initiatives were supported by ongoing employee education. Monthly meetings are held to communicate the company’s environmental goals, and employees are encouraged to create and implement environmental goals on an individual basis. Through lean and green thinking, ongoing education, and easy to understand signage, there are high levels of employee engagement in sustainability programming.

Moving Forward
While Spec Furniture has actively reduced the amount of waste the company generates overall, it has also increased its diversion from landfill rate by an outstanding 73 per cent – from 5 per cent diverted in 2008 to 78 per cent diverted in 2009. This demonstrates how dedication to waste diversion has achievable and tangible results. However, they are not stopping there. Spec Furniture employees are looking towards new projects to help them achieve their 100 per cent waste diverted from landfill by 2020 goal.

Specs has started creating reusable give away bags from scrap fabric generated in its processes, and are also investigating using scrap fabric as packaging, which would replace bubble wrap and other plastics used for packaging. As well, Spec Furniture is currently striving to achieve ISO 14001 certification which requires that all environmental aspects be addressed and a plan implemented for significant impacts.

Beyond the waste generated through the manufacturing processes, Spec Furniture is also considering the waste created from their products when they are no longer needed. Spec has created a Design for the Environment program which encourages the use of recycled materials that can be easily separated for recycling at the end of the product's life.

While diverting garbage from landfills and decreasing the need for fossil fuels by recycling, Spec Furniture’s waste management program saved the company approximately $15,000 in its first few months alone, and will contribute to having their products certified according to the highly stringent Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association (BIFMA) Furniture Sustainability Standard. This is yet another example of how going green makes good business strategy.

Jennifer Taves is a Project Coordinator with Partners in Project Green. For more great case studies, visit www.partnersinprojectgreen.com. You can also subscribe to these RSS feeds to keep up to date: 
Green News
Best Practices

Many business leaders recognize that the true value of sustainability is realized only when sustainability is embedded into their organizations' cultures. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports often describe sustainability as "part of our DNA" or "the way we do business"; however, business leaders lack a clear framework for systematically embedding sustainability into organizational culture. This may be about to change.
 
Canadian Business for Social Responsibility and the Network for Business Sustainability have produced such a framework following a recent workshop of senior sustainability and HR executives. Convened by Barb Steele of CBSR and facilitated by Professor Tima Bansal of the Richard Ivey School of Business, the workshop asked participants how they integrate CSR into their organizational cultures.
 
The best practices that emerged from the workshop are presented in a five-part framework, and leaders' insights were distilled into the following top three "secrets" to creating a sustainable culture: 

1. Collaborate with other organizations. Find NGOs and other businesses who value sustainability and work with them to implement environmental and social programs.
2. Create a safe place for bold ideas. Reframe business innovation within the context of sustainability.
3. Tap into grassroots employee energy. Empower employees to be sustainability champions within the organization and encourage them to set their own sustainability targets for performance reviews.

Sustainability and HR professionals are encouraged to map their own sustainability initiatives against the report's five-part framework and to identify the specific practices that could help them further integrate sustainability into their own organizations' cultures.

To learn more, download the report Embedding Sustainability in Organizational Culture.

The list of Canada's "Green 30" — organizations whose employees are most positive about their record on environmental stewardship — was released today, Earth Day, by Hewitt Associates, a global human resources consulting and outsourcing company.

This year's list of Canada's Greenest Employers was also announced by the editors of the Canada's Top 100 Employers project. Fifty organizations across Canada were recognized on this second list.

Hewitt's list  was compiled from employee feedback using Hewitt's Employee Green Index, which focuses on employers' strategies, activities and efforts to minimize the environmental impact of their operations, products and services.

Now in its third year, the Canada's Greenest Employers competition grew out of two speeches given by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Al Gore at the annual conference on the Canada's Top 100 Employers project in 2006 and 2007. "The competition is unique in that our editorial team takes the time to write out detailed Reasons for Selection, explaining why every winner was chosen," says Tony Meehan, Publisher of the Canada's Top 100 Employers project. "This provides transparency in the selection process and inspires other employers to emulate their best-practices, raising the bar for everyone."

Hewitt's Green 30
As part of the 2010 Best Employers in Canada and Best Small & Medium Employers in Canada studies, Hewitt surveyed over 100,000 employees at 230 organizations regarding their employers' commitment to environmental stewardship. At the Green 30 organizations, an average of 86 per cent of employees have a positive perception of their employers' eco-friendly efforts. At the 30 organizations with the least positive reviews, that figure is 58 per cent.

"Our findings show that employees really see the difference when their employer is focused on developing and implementing environmentally-conscious policies and practices," said Neil Crawford, Hewitt's leader of the Best Employers in Canada study. "Effective green programs and practices may persuade certain employees to join or stay with an organization."

However, more employers are gradually adopting environmentally-friendly programs. While all of this year's Green 30 encourage recycling, waste reduction and/or reduced paper usage, so do 86 per cent of the 30 organizations with the lowest rankings on the Employee Green Index. "The gap is higher with respect to other initiatives," stated Crawford. "The Green 30 are twice as likely as the 30 lowest ranked organizations to subsidize carbon offsets for business travel, sponsor programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from business operations, host events to facilitate participation in Earth Day or Earth Hour, and subsidize the costs of bike storage and/or showers for employees who cycle to work. While there are significant variations in the use of some of these practices amongst the Green 30, they all demonstrate real passion and commitment to reducing the impact of their business on the environment in the eyes of their employees."

The Green 30 list is as follows (in alphabetical order): 
Aecon Group Inc.                                      
BC Biomedical Laboratories Ltd.                      
Bentall LP                                          
BLJC                                              
Cascades Inc.                                       
Cisco Canada                                      
Co-operators Life Insurance Company                   
Delta Hotels                                          
EllisDon Corporation                                  
Envision Financial                                   
G&K Services Canada Inc.                              
Greater Edmonton Foundation: Housing for Seniors      
ISL Engineering and Land Services                     
Ivanhoe Cambridge Inc.                                
LoyaltyOne Inc.                                       
Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics                         
Marriott Hotels of Canada Ltd.                        
McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Limited              
Mountain Equipment Co-op                              
National Leasing                                      
Nexen Inc.                                           
PCL Constructors Inc.                                 
Public Outreach Fundraising Consultancy Inc.          
Ricoh Canada Inc.                                    
Scotiabank Group                                     
Stewart Weir & Co. Ltd.                               
Stikeman Elliott LLP                                  
TD Bank Financial Group                              
The Co-operators                                     
Vancity Credit Union

Organizations that participate in the Best Small & Medium Employers in Canada (50-399 employees) or the Best Employers in Canada (400 or more employees) studies are automatically eligible for The Green 30 list. The deadline to register for each study - and therefore be considered for the 2011 Green 30 list - is May 31, 2010. For more information and to register online, visit www.hewitt.com/bestemployerscanada.

Greenest Employers
"We've seen a significant increase in the number of organizations that are incorporating environmental values into their culture," says Richard Yerema, Managing Editor at Mediacorp Canada Inc. "These organizations recognize the importance of environmental values to their employees and customers - their initiatives read like a catalogue of best-practices."

This year's list includes some of Canada's best-known employers, plus more than a few less-familiar organizations with remarkable environmental initiatives that the editorial team wanted to recognize. The resulting list offers readers hundreds of great ideas that the winning employers have successfully put in place. A full list of their projects and the editors' detailed Reasons for Selection can be viewed at: www.CanadasTop100.com/environmental

The 2010 Greenest Employers are (in alphabetical order):
Abbotsford Community Services
Aeroplan LP
ARAMARK Canada Ltd.
Bayer Inc.
BC Public Service
Bell Aliant Regional Communications
British Columbia Institute of Technology
Busby Perkins+Will Architect Co.
Certified General Accountants Association of Canada
Christie Digital Systems Canada, Inc.
Compass Group Canada
Davis + Henderson LP
Enbridge Inc.
Enermodal Engineering Ltd.
Enmax Corporation
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
Georgian College
Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co.
Home Depot Canada, The
IKEA Canada Limited Partnership
KPMG LLP
Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Loblaw Companies Limited
LoyaltyOne, Inc.
McGill University Health Centre
Mountain Equipment Co-op
New Flyer Industries Canada ULC
Northern Alberta Institute of Technology
Ontario Public Service
Patient News Publishing Inc.
Rescan Environmental Services Ltd.
Research In Motion Limited
Royal Bank of Canada
Sapient Canada, Inc.
SAS Institute Canada, Inc.
SaskTel
Stantec
State Farm Insurance
Steam Whistle Brewing
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
TD Bank Financial Group
Toronto Hydro Corporation
Toronto, City of
University of Alberta
University of Victoria
Vancity Group
Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre
Veridian Corporation
Whistler Blackcomb
Whistler, Resort Municipality of

Over the past decade, corporate environmental sustainability has become an almost universally recognized precept of business conduct. Environmentally conscious organizations are finding that their sustainable practices impact suppliers as well as customers; leading organizations are literally promoting sustainability throughout the entire value chain.

In this context, strategically applied procurement processes – the application of best practices to align the costs and benefits of procurement to overall corporate goals – can provide multiple benefits for large organizations. As they increasingly adopt new methods of moving goods and services from their suppliers to their customers, market leaders are realizing that strategic procurement not only reduces costs, adds value and boosts efficiencies, but also creates more sustainable operations by lowering the company’s carbon footprint. By taking care of the social and financial aspects of procuring goods and services, they are reaping environmental benefits as well.

Strategic procurement is in its infancy, in the sense that far too many organizations remain preoccupied with getting the lowest possible price for the goods and services they buy. This approach is limited by the reality that prices can only be reduced so much, and it ignores the many hidden costs associated with inefficient processes, including item-by-item shopping based solely on price, and the uncoordinated use of multiple suppliers.

Advanced organizations, on the other hand, seek sustainability as well as consistent profitability, and they recognize that an often missed opportunity to achieve these goals is through strategic procurement. Price fixation gives way to strategic planning that aims for efficiency by consolidating suppliers and by streamlining or redesigning procurement processes to minimize the internal costs of acquisition as much as the actual costs of the goods and services that are being purchased. Paper-based systems are replaced with web-based equivalents. Suppliers become partners who understand their customers’ businesses and are able to contribute to value-chain solutions rather than merely filling orders. In the process, organizations as well as their suppliers edge closer to sustainable practices.

Organizations that adopt streamlined strategic procurement best practices can expect to realize the following six key benefits:

Efficiency – When organizations order supplies of various kinds, they build in a range of preferences that are unique to their operations — everything from authorizations to packing slip instructions. In a traditional paper-based procurement system, this can result in inefficiencies that actually add costs and reduce profitability. A strategic procurement approach, however, would incorporate an e-commerce system that has both cost and environmental benefits. Such systems can speed the ordering and payment processes, and by using automated features such as product blocking and product subbing control, they eliminate mistakes. These systems can also consolidate orders and extend the ordering cycle, thereby greening the company by reducing the number of deliveries, energy consumption and a company’s carbon footprint.

Cost Savings – Price is an important factor in procurement, but the sticker price of a product is only a fraction of its total cost to an organization. Businesses that have an eye on sustainable profitability try to take a three-dimensional view of procurement costs. For example, they realize that it costs more to do business with eight suppliers than two. Additionally, reducing the number of supplier relationships is much more efficient to manage than multiple arrangements, and it makes for a more efficient supply chain.

Control – By imposing business goals and benchmarks, a strategic approach makes procurement more transparent and more controllable. For example, strategic procurement programs build in regular, detailed reviews of supply chain processes: from initial ordering to delivery and the regularity of the ordering process. Such programs secure the buy-in of everyone from the purchasing team to end users in an organization by using effective communications. Individual and group performance can be monitored in relation to overall forecasted goals. Equally, these programs engage suppliers as full partners in the procurement process, allowing them to contribute solutions to problems of control, efficiency, savings, consistency and sustainability. 

Support – By aligning an organization with fewer, but more strategic partner-suppliers, organizations benefit from a full range of purchasing support – from e-commerce and customer service specialists to financial analysts, interiors and technology advisors. The more a supplier knows about the goals, challenges and needs of an organization, the more they can help it become more efficient and make the most of strategic procurement efforts.

Sustainability – Being environmentally conscious means much more than simply switching to eco-friendly products. Organizations need to take a 360-degree view of the entire purchasing lifecycle in order to change behaviour. Strategic procurement recognizes that each process, each choice, has an environmental impact on a business. Thus, it encourages sustainable procurement by ordering online, choosing green products, consolidating orders, reducing delivery frequency, switching to e-invoicing, disposing of products responsibly and managing consumption, keeping employees safe and satisfied, and working with partners that take a holistic view of sustainability.

Business Success – The best way to survive an economic upheaval and become prosperous is to effectively control costs. One way to do this is to simplify the procurement process, thereby cutting costs, adding value, and boosting efficiency. Such organizations are successful, sustainable and able to be better at what they do.

The growth of information technology has had an enormous impact on corporations in the past 30 years. Full-fledged IT departments, once scarce, have become the norm in large organizations, as has the role of the chief information officer. The supply chain sector and the procurement function have expanded in parallel. According to Statistics Canada, more than 700,000 people work in supply chain management in Canada today. And over the next three-to-five years, an estimated 86,000 supply chain management recruits will be needed annually to fill new or vacant jobs, according to the Purchasing Association of Canada. These positions will demand professionals who are both supply chain specialists and strategic, sustainable business managers.

The next generation of procurement professionals will have enhanced roles within organizations. By entrenching strategic procurement best practices as a core competency, they transcend the role of mere cost-cutters to become valued practitioners of long-term, sustainable growth.

Natasha Renaud is Director of Communication and Social Responsibility at Grand & Toy, the leading office solutions provider offering strategic office procurement to Canadian businesses.


Three simple rules for maximizing procurement benefits
Corporations don’t require big budgets and vast procurement resources to have a mature sourcing strategy. By following three key principles of strategic procurement, organizations can reduce costs and encourage sustainability: 

Centralize – Leverage buying power as much as possible with fewer suppliers

Standardize – Create guidelines for sourcing behaviours and standardize them throughout the company

Streamline – Align other functional areas such as IT, HR and marketing with the procurement team and suppliers to maximize efficiency and enhance buying power

“Green”-labeled products are becoming more common in every industry, but not all live up to their billing. If you want to make an impact with your product, what can you do to stand out? Recently, Green Business sat down with Kevin Royce, owner of Eco Building Resource in Aurora, Ontario, to talk about what makes a successful eco-friendly product. He believes there are 5 things business owners should be thinking about:

1. Prove the claims — “When I get a new product in, I check with clients to see that it continues to function as it is supposed to,” says Royce. In other words, make sure your product can live up to its billing. The greenwashing label is a difficult moniker to dodge if you overstep your claims even slightly. If there is a particular environmental or energy-saving benefit your product offers, stick to that. Don’t muddy the waters by pushing your claims too far.

2. Quality is more important than ever before — Just because a product is eco-friendly doesn’t mean it can stand the scrutiny of discerning buyers. It has to be high-quality as well. “That’s a big issue for me,” says Royce. “For a while, I was selling a recycled paint. From an ecological standpoint, the idea is great — it keeps old paint out of landfills. The problem is, when I used it in my own home, it gave everyone in the family headaches. In that particular case, the negatives outweighed the positives.” An eco-product has to stand out in quality particularly if it comes with a bigger price tag. If it can’t outperform the competition it will be abandoned and give the whole concept of the “green” product a bad name – a double-whammy for a business interested in carving out a green niche.

3. Price is still king — No matter what you do, cost is going to be a factor. Whether you are producing light bulbs or paint, car parts or carpets, you have to be cost-competitive. “Sometimes it’s ok to work at a premium, if there are other benefits that make the product stand out,” says Royce. “But, for instance, if you are interested in selling environmentally friendly lubricants to replace standard oils, you’ve got to have something that is at the same price point of what you are replacing.”

4. Stand outside the eco-box — While Royce started ECO Building Resource Ltd. with ecological benefits in mind, he’s finding that it is other qualities of his eco-product offerings that are really making a difference with clients — particularly health benefits. “More and more people are shopping green because of health concerns,” says Royce. “People with multiple chemical sensitivities are looking for alternative products they can use in their households. For instance, we are now selling a soy-based paint that has very low levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These are the products that seem to be appealing to shoppers strongly in our market. It’s a small pool of buyers, but it’s a valuable selling point for them.” What else makes your product stand out?

5. Promote and partner — It can be hard to get the message out about your green product. For that reason, Royce has been working with his suppliers and customers to spread the word. Although tradeshows and some press have made a bit of a dent so far, Royce is finding that he gets the most leads from the Internet. “I’m still working on my online social networking skills,” jokes Royce. “But I get lots of calls from across Toronto and elsewhere in Canada because people have found me online.”

An environmentally friendly or sustainable product is difficult to define in these days of carbon footprints, renewable power choices and supply chain transparency. But remember that creating a green business of any kind happens one step at a time. The famous Ray Anderson of Interface Floor fame has spent years making his product as environmentally friendly as it is today, and even he doesn’t believe his company is there yet. The point is to make steps along your sustainability journey.

For more information on Eco Building Resource, visit www.eco-building.ca/.

Davos, Switzerland — Yesterday, 10 leading organizations announced the launch of the GreenXchange (GX), a Web-based marketplace where companies can collaborate and share intellectual property (IP) which can lead to new sustainability business models and innovation.

Announced at a CEO breakfast at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the organizations called on other corporations to join them in committing to opening up their IP to fast-track the development of innovative solutions to sustainability challenges.

"Nike is today committing to placing more than 400 of our patents on GX for research, demonstrating our belief that the best way to stimulate sustainable innovation is through open innovation," said Mark Parker, Nike, Inc., President and CEO. "Our hope is this will unleash new innovation to help solve current obstacles to sustainability issues."

One example of IP that could have cross-industry benefits is Nike's Environmentally Preferred Rubber. Used in Nike footwear the rubber contains 96 per cent fewer toxins than the original formulation. By licensing the technology on GX it could be used in other company's footwear, or it could hypothetically be used by Mountain Equipment Co-op for bicycle inner tubes. In this way, Mountain Equipment Co-op could bring a greener product to market more quickly and cheaply than it could on its own.

"There is so much duplication of effort and wasted resources when it comes to sustainability," said John Wilbanks, VP for Science at Creative Commons, the organization responsible for creating a platform to make the sharing of IP simple, faster and more cost-effective.

"We need to make it easier for individuals, companies, academia, and researchers to collaborate and share best practices in order to create and adopt technologies that have the potential to solve global sustainability challenges," Wilbanks said.

The 10 founding partners of GX share a commitment to the power of open innovation and collaborative networks to fuel sustainable innovation by making their patented technologies available for research and licensing. "Today Best Buy will also commit to licensing patents and related information on GX to support sustainable innovation," said Kal Patel, Best Buy EVP of Emerging Business.

Don Tapscott, co-author of "Wikinomics" and chairman of nGenera Insight, is a visionary thinker who inspired and helped incubate GX in conjunction with Nike's Sustainable Business and Innovation Lab. Tapscott said, "Increasingly it makes good business sense for companies to share some of their intellectual property. The GreenXchange is the new commons and by applying open innovation to sustainability it will contribute not just to the heath and well being of our planet but also to the cost control and competitiveness of its member companies."

nGenera Corporation will be facilitating the GX innovation process by providing the technology that will support "private rooms", where patent holders and patent seekers can discuss prior usage, patent fees, patent restrictions, and other confidential details.

GX was built by a team of developers on salesforce.com's cloud computing platform, enabling the collaborative innovation at the heart of the GX mission. "The founding members share a vision for bringing about positive change through better collaboration," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. "The business of changing the world is something today's leading companies need to take an active role in, and we are proud to be a part of that effort."

"Yahoo! is encouraged by the GreenXchange's commitment to accelerate the learning curve for energy efficiency, sustainable technology, and sustainable business practices, through open innovation," said David Dibble, EVP of service engineering, and operations, Yahoo! Inc. "The GreenXChange fosters cross-industry collaboration to increase the adoption of sustainable best practices, in a manner that's good for the planet and good for our individual businesses."

In placing intellectual property on GX, it gives the IP owners the ability to choose the licensing approach they feel comfortable with — from research and attribution recognition to non-competitive use and simple fee structures.

By making private intellectual property visible and usable, the aim is to accelerate the development of green innovation. The launch of GX is the first step in a journey towards more sustainable innovation, and the more companies that post their IP the faster the journey. More information can be found at greenxchange.force.com/.

Whether a building is labeled “green” or not doesn’t necessarily determine its efficiency level — some buildings are just better managed than others. The challenge in managing any property is to get individuals working within it to operate it properly. This is particularly difficult in restaurants where “efficiency” is all about getting people their food as quickly (and pleasantly) as possible. You can’t turn off a deep fryer with customers at the front of the house just to save energy. Or can you? Leslie Burns, Energy Manager for the Harmony Group of companies is finding there is a lot she can do with the teams at Earls, Joey Restaurants and Cactus Club restaurants to shed energy use without affecting customers.

Securing buy-in
Burns has been with the Harmony Group for about four years now. The first three were spent as a senior purchaser with Earls, the upscale, Vancouver-based restaurant chain run by Stan Fuller, the eldest of the Fuller brothers, who own and manage the three restaurant concepts, along with Richard Jaffray, co-owner and President of Cactus Club.

“I’m a bit of an energy conservation maniac,” jokes Burns. “When I saw what I thought could amount to real savings in both the front and the back of the house in our restaurants, I sat down with Stan Fuller and basically said, ‘this is crazy, we could be saving so much money.’ So he asked me to put a proposal together, and here I am.”

When Burns took up the challenge of the proposal, she had two particular targets in mind – standard operating procedures (SOPs) for all of the equipment in the back of the restaurant, and lighting out front.

“No other restaurant in North America had the sort of comprehensive program I wanted to put together that not only included energy but also a composting and recycling program in every store,” says Burns.

Stan Fuller hopped on board with Burns’ idea the moment he saw the potential savings and impact the move could have. It was then up to Burns to sell it to the presidents of Joey Restaurants and Cactus Club – brother Jeff Fuller and Richard Jaffray, respectively.

“Without them being on board, it’s very difficult to get buy-in from operations, design or marketing teams among these very competitive restaurant concepts,” notes Burns.

And that’s one of the many interesting elements of Burns’ position – she is working to create bottom-line benefits for a group of restaurants that actually compete with each other fiercely in the western Canadian market. This requires a lot of stick-handling in meetings that involve all the restaurants.

But she did get buy-in from all leadership and went forward with a pilot in a North Vancouver Earls – “a location that I could map very easily,” Burns notes.

Within six months, in that one location, simply by changing the way they manage their processes every day, the company had saved roughly $4,000. “From a controllable cost point of view, that was substantial for a restaurant,” says Burns.

Earls Vancouver Downtown on Hornby

The a-ha moment – walk-through audits
Now that the concept had been proven in one location, Burns put together an energy committee, and she managed this with strategic care.

“I had to figure out the right people from each restaurant concept to have on the committee – people who could make decisions and carry them through into each chain to get the whole process rolling,” she notes. “Within the last year, this has given me the ability to go into all concepts, do energy audits and SOP audits, discuss how each restaurant is currently running, basically teach them about their utilities and how they are managing them.

“These store leaders run restaurants and pay bills, and it’s really quite an eye opener when I sit down and explain to them exactly the cost per gigajoule or cost per kilowatt hour that they are paying in each province, and how a piece of equipment like a deep fryer actually affects them,” Burns continues. “Once they start recognizing those costs, it’s like this huge light bulb goes off. It’s amazing once I pick a couple of pieces of equipment in their restaurant and basically tell them this one burner on this six burner stove running for one hour is going to cost them a particular amount – from there, they start looking at every piece of equipment with that focus, so we’re seeing some really big wins in a lot of the stores just from, for instance, not turning their fryers on so early.”

Burns explains that there is about 20 pieces of equipment running on electrical or natural gas in a kitchen, and it’s not too challenging to find ways to save on those costs if you are looking.

For instance, she points out that a restaurant may turn on a deep fryer at 6:30 when someone comes in but they don’t use it until 11. “That is a huge chunk of change in their pocket,” she stresses. Now, many of the restaurants are working at keeping some fryers off on traditionally slower days, or starting them up later and designing their menus around that. “It’s really amazing when you give these guys a little knowledge, where they take it to the next level. And each restaurant is now developing internal SOPs.”

Of course, just because the managers have caught the bug doesn’t mean that Burns stays hands-off from thereon in. “You have to streamline something like this to the nth degree,” she explains. “When a new piece of equipment comes in, we send a reminder to the team saying it’s a new piece of equipment and it’s more energy efficient, so you have to start your SOP all over again on this one piece of equipment. And the reason behind that is the equipment they are getting rid of is fairly old, so it did take longer, it was more of a drain, so we trying to map all of those anomalies that are happening internally in restaurants.” 

Burns has completed audits of roughly half of the locations in the Harmony Group’s stable of 108 locations, usually spending between 3-3.5 hours in each location doing a walk-through audit of the back of the house and the front.

“I don’t usually say too much to the team before I get there because I do need the managers to have that ‘a-ha’ moment,” says Burns. “But after that, I put presentations together for them to share with staff, as well as videos to start the education process, and then we do monthly reporting for them that charts their success.

“What we’re really trying to do is to take the human variable out of the equation because so much of that affects energy use,” says Burns. “I bet that on average about 25 per cent of energy costs are reduced when we manage that piece of the puzzle. Once you have taken that out, you can see the true cost of running that facility, and you can start doing upgrades and effectively track those upgrades more effectively.”

Cost-per-meal – a new standard?
To complete the package, Burns also had to get the design and marketing teams together to talk through improvements they could make. This was a challenge because, of course, each restaurant chain competes against each other on look as much as anything else.

“When you get a group like design together, you have to leave what kind of chandelier you are going to use out of the conversation – you really have to start talking about the HVAC systems, the mechanicals, the opportunities for doing grant and rebate pilot projects, sharing that kind of information,” Burns explains. “When we finally figured out what we were doing there, it rolled out quite easily because we are not dealing with what makes us individuals within operations.” 

With the marketing department of each chain, Burns had to get them on board with a new set of standards for the restaurants. “We are thinking of trademarking what we’ve put together,” says Burns.

Essentially, what the company is trying to create is a ‘cost-per-meal’ efficiency standard. It’s not an exact science, to be sure – any such standard has to account for location, temperatures, etc. However, Burns sees the company having a standard that would serve for all restaurants in a particular city, for instance.

To get all the numbers right, Burns expects the process take three years — one year to remove the human error element through SOPs, a second year for low-hanging fruit like lighting retrofits, and a third year to address larger cost overhauls, such as overhead vents, variable speed fans and HVAC upgrades.

Then again, with Canada being such a diverse landscape, year three items in some places might provide quick paybacks elsewhere. For instance at Joey Chinook in Calgary, the restaurant switched out its old hood over its cook line and put in a variable speed fan. The location immediately dropped 25 per cent of its electrical bill. “From an Alberta standpoint, that was an amazing coup,” says Burns. “We measure the greenhouse gas emissions from every location as well, and their emissions dropped substantially as well.”

Supply chain engagement
Burns explains that the Harmony Group is slowly reaching out to all of its suppliers with information about its program. The main reason, however, isn’t to blow their own horn, it’s to better calculate the energy use of all the equipment they use.

“We are asking these vendors to submit the specifications of all equipment – coolers, freezers, stereos, TVs, fryers, you name it – and we have created an equipment list with a formula attached that allows us to calculate the cost per day per province or state in which that piece of equipment is running,” Burns explains. “This was another eye opener for the managers. When they actually saw what a patio heater was costing them when no one was sitting out there, it changed their practices.”

And the company is starting to see a large impact. For instance, among the four Earls locations in Manitoba, within three months from their initial audit, they had shed 47 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

The company is also looking to suppliers for more energy-efficient versions of their products – a request that will no doubt have an effect on the supply chain.

Composting for dollars
The next major drive for Burns is to get waste out of landfills. The Harmony Group’s aim is to divert 45 per cent of its waste from landfill and put it towards composting. Currently, the company has about 20 locations on a full-on composting-recycling program. The majority of those are in BC, although the is one test pilot in Manitoba, and four in Alberta. 

This makes sense from a cost point of view, notes Burns. It is cheaper to have compost picked up, and the weight reduction and frequency of garbage pick-up has been impressive.

“On average, we are down from three waste pick-ups of a six-yard bin every week, to one pick-up of a 2-4 yard bin a week,” Burns notes. In addition, at Earls, the restaurant is moving towards more recyclable materials in its takeout packaging.

It’s still early days for Burns on her journey to making the Harmony Group more energy efficient and environmentally sound, but already she has helped to create a new way of viewing restaurants, blazing a unique trail. Watch for future updates on this remarkable success story.

As editor of Green Business, I get an opportunity to speak to a number of fascinating personalities and insightful individuals. These few interviews are insightful for different reasons, but all are worth another read.

Paul O’Brien: Taking tidal power by storm
Scotland hopes to bring 2 GW of tidal and wave generated power to the grid over the next 10 years. Paul O’Brien explains why wave and tidal power are of such interest in Scotland, the successes they’ve seen so far, and the plans for a greater rollout in years to come.

Nelson Switzer and Jim Johnston: Embedding sustainability within organizations
At last year’s Green Business / PricewaterhouseCoopers Executive Roundtable, Nelson Switzer, Director of Corporate Responsibility for Direct Energy, shared his first impressions of the corporate culture at Direct Energy, an organization he had joined only six months prior to the event. While he discovered a vibrant culture, and some very good corporate responsibility initiatives, he wanted to further embed corporate responsibility within the organization’s core operations in a way that hadn’t yet been done. Green Business caught up with him for an update on his team’s progress.

Jim Johnston was also part of the Green Business / PwC roundtable last year. His work at BMO Financial Group made strides this year.

Martha Delgado Peralta: Rethinking a city
Mexico City has a very ambitious climate action plan. On a recent visit to Toronto, Secretary of the Environment, Martha Delgado Peralta, explained a few aspects of the city’s program. Watch the video interviews:
Mexico City: Transforming a city while fighting climate change
Big city action: how national governments at Copenhagen climate talks can learn from what cities have accomplished so far
Mexico City: Opportunities for innovative cleantech businesses

Rick Huijbregts, VP, Vertical Industries, Cisco: Customer-friendly smart buildings
Cisco has made a big impact in the drive to make building systems smarter. With the company’s purchase of Richards-Zeta earlier this year, they took a further step to becoming the premiere building systems integrator. With a customer-friendly implementation proposition, it could drive the greening of more buildings. 

Mike Andrade, Celestica: The speed of change increases
This isn’t technically an interview but an address made at the launch of Cleantech North earlier this fall. Andrade’s address begins about four minutes into this video. His concept of the speed of change in business today is a wake-up call to us all. It also adds to the debate at this year's Green Business / PwC roundtable that focused on the opportunities and challenges for cleantech in Canada.
 

In October, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Craib Design & Communications released CSR Trends 3, a comprehensive survey of corporate social responsibility (CSR) report trends, benchmarks and best practices. As part of the report, PwC's Mel Wilson offered a list of eight key components that should be part of the preparation of any CSR report. They are as follows:

1. Scope of your report
The first thing readers need to see is a "road map" that tells them what is in the report and what is not. Usually readers have to infer what is not covered, but some companies explicitly identify information that is not in the report. The report scope should also contain a description of the process and criteria that were used to determine the information that has been included.

2. Description of your company and its operations
This should contain information such as who runs the company, what the company does and where it operates. This crucial information sets the context for the remaining sections on your sustainability performance.

3. Performance domain
Most corporate sustainability reports take a "triple-bottom-line" approach by covering three performance domains: social, economic, and environmmental. Although conceptually these three domains are inter-connected, in a sustainability report it is important that they be distinguished in order to effectively set the direction of the story arc.

4. The specific issues of interest to stakeholders
There are many issues within each performance domain and it is critical that your company makes an effort to determine which are of interest to your stakeholders and which are not. Once the important issues are identified, they should be clearly presented in the report along with an explanation of why the issue is important and how it relates to the company's performance.

5. Your company's policies and perspective
Once introduced, your report should articulate where your company stands vis-a-vis the issue, either by describing your policies or through a more general discussion that reflects management's perspective. This does not need to be a long section. In fact, conciseness makes it easier for the reader to determine whether the company's perspective aligns with his or her own.

6. Description of your company's processes and initiatives to manage the issue
Your report should talk about what you are actually doing about the issue. The goal is to demonstrate that your company not only talks the talk, it walks the walk. This section should contain numerous brief action-oriented examples of what your company did in the previous year to address the issue. This is a good opportunity to use photographs and graphics to explain your initiatives. However, it is important not to overdo it with too many examples, especially if some of them are weak. Pick the best examples of your programs and highlight them.

7. Performance indicators
Your report should present quantitative performance indicators related to each issue. For many stakeholders, this is the proof-in-the-pudding moment. Your company can talk about your programs all you want, but in the end you have to measure your performance and show progress. For this reason, it is important to show year-over-year changes in performance wherever possible. This section should also contain management's comments on the performance — were they satisfied or dissatisfied with it? — and factors that contributed to success or failure.

8. Future goals and targets
Your report should conclude with a brief discussion of future performance goals and targets relating to the issues. The concept of including goals and targets in a sustainability report is a relatively contentious issue. In general, you should not set out detailed goals and targets unless you are confident that the performance metrics are accurately measured, and that you have a reasonably well thought out plan to achieve the targets. Publicly stating goals and targets without having confidence in both is not only misleading to the reader, it sets the company up for serious problems in the future.

Using this framework for your next sustainability report will help you organize both your thoughts and information. It will also help you convey key messages in a way that flows logically, making your report easier to read and more engaging for your readers.

Framework component	Example
1	"This report includes information on our environmental, social and economic performance..."
2	"We have 20 facilities located in six countries..."
3	Environment
4	Climate change
5	"We are concerned about climate change and we recognize we need to improve our performance"
6	"We have initiated numerous emission reduction programs, as follows..."
7	Greenhouse gas emissions in tonnes CO2e
8	"Our goal is to reduce our emissions by a further five per cent by 2012 by undertaking the following..."

Applying this framework to climate change leads the reader from the report scope through to specific GHG PIs and targets.

This article has been reprinted on Green Business with permission of the author. Mel Wilson ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) is Associate Partner, Sustainability Reporting and Assurance Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. To read the full CSR Trends 3 Report, click here.

In each industry, there are hot spots of potential for greening a business. A “hot spot,” to me, means improving a process so that it saves the company money and energy, or improves its present and future “licence to operate” in the community. For many, this simply means improving energy efficiency, but reducing the production of waste from processes can be a big consideration as well. Parkers Custom Clothing Care in Toronto feels it has found a new model for dry cleaning that can reduce its carbon footprint and its waste footprint.

“We are the first dry cleaners in Canada and among the very first in the world, next to the U.S. and Japan, to use this new environmentally-friendly Solvair Cleaning System,” says Gary Fine, President of Parkers Custom Clothing Care.

This new system uses a biodegradable cleaning fluid to clean clothes, combined with a drying process that uses no heat.

The benefits of this process are found in both the washing and the drying process. After the clothes have been washed in the cleaning fluid (using no additional water – an environmental saving in itself), the waste fluid is extracted and recaptured in the very same type of containers used to feed the machine with cleaning solvent. That waste liquid can then be carted off by Street’s, the company that created the Solvair, for processing.

“Nothing goes down the drain, so there is no potential for environmental damages,” notes Fine. “Standard dry cleaning machines use perchlorethylene, which is a very good cleaning agent, but it can leak through concrete if not properly handled. As a landlord, I can appreciate the sort of challenge that can create for a property. While standard dry cleaning machines have safeguards to avoid that sort of contamination, taking the environmental concern off the table is a definite step in the right direction.”

Fine has always had an interest in being a greener cleaner. In fact, he has another property that uses a different type of “green” dry cleaning, but he has found that the drying process with the new Solvair system is superior.

In Solvair’s process, garments are dried by being bathed in a succession of cool rinses with pressurized liquid carbon dioxide (CO2).

“This CO2 is recycled from other industries. It is captured and purified and put to use in the Solvair process, so it does not contribute to greenhouse gases,” notes Brian Hatt, Canadian Sales Manager for Street’s.

It’s an experience to touch clothing that has just been removed from the system – they are cold to the touch because no heat has been applied. In fact, the CO2 sits at around 40 degrees Fahrenheit while extracting the cleaning fluid from the clothes. They also have no discernable scent.

Because the clothes aren’t tumbled during the drying process – “they float like an astronaut on a spacewalk,” as Fine describes it – there isn’t as much potential wear on clothes. Because it doesn’t use heat, it also doesn’t set stains in the drying process, allow for dye transfer or affect elastics in clothing.

From a process point of view, Parkers will save 161 gallons of perchlorethylene per year by using the technology.

At the same time, the machine can handle its actual rated amount of clothing. “In standard machines, an 80 lb machine will actually be able to clean 60 lb of clothes,” explains Fine. “This machine is set for 30 lb, and it actually cleans 30 lb of clothing.” Because the machine takes about half the time as a standard dry cleaning machine, Fine isn’t losing valuable time for his investment either.

The system is also monitored remotely, so that there is no possibility of operator error.

“All machines are hooked up online to our head office in Chicago,” says Hatt. “Operators use a simple touch screen to operate the system. If there is a spill, a sensor mouse that sits below the wheel shuts the system down, if necessary, and sends an email to tech support staff so that they can act on the problem.”

Although Fine had to make an initial investment in this technology that is higher than standard machines, he believes that the company will make back that investment in client satisfaction and repeat business, reduced water use, and forward thinking environmental stewardship. There is substantial value in all three of those outcomes.

He won’t stop there, of course. Fine is always working to improve the profitability and ecological soundness of his business. Right now, he is trying to determine how to switch from using plastic to cover dry-cleaned clothes to a form of wrap that customers will return each time they bring their clothes in. In other words, an ecologically sensitive solution that becomes a help, rather than a hindrance, to his client base – and hopefully one that saves on his costs as well.

Robert Colman is editor of Green Business.