But what happens to all that packaging after its purpose has been fulfilled?

According to Statistics Canada, in 2008, the latest year data was available; 8.5 million tonnes of residential solid waste, such as used packaging, food scraps, old computers and newspapers, was generated in Canada. That is the per capita equivalent in weight to 600 soccer balls, or 725 cans of soup.

The cost to manage all that waste is equally staggering. Canadian governments in 2008 spent a whopping $2.6 billion to manage municipal solid waste, an increase of $1.1 billion since 2002. The United States Environment Protection Agency reported that, in 2010, packaging represented 30% of all municipal solid waste countrywide.

Walmart steps up to the waste challenge

In 2005, to address the sustainability challenge caused by the waste issue, Walmart publicly committed to three long-term sustainability goals:

1. To be supplied 100% by renewable energy
2. To create zero waste
3. To sell products that sustain people and the environment

Serving over 245 million customers in 27 countries, Walmart has an enormous footprint. So when they decided to step up to the critical sustainability challenge caused by waste, they attracted a great deal of attention.

To reach their sustainability goals, Walmart chose a collaborative approach. It formed a number of technical working groups called Sustainable Value Networks (SVNs), which were made up of a diverse group of internal resources and outside experts.

One of the first working groups focused on packaging reduction and waste diversion, bringing together representatives from the packaging and waste management industries, government, universities, industry associations, and Walmart vendor partners.

The Walmart Canada Packaging SVN launched the Sustainable Packaging Scorecard in 2009. The Packaging Scorecard evaluates the sustainability of product packaging based on several criteria such as material type and weight, product to package ratio and cube utilization. They also collaborated with representatives of several other organizations to form the Material Optimization Committee – aimed at exploring how to improve recycling rates for packaging and increase the volume of waste diverted from landfill. Committee members included the Retail Council of Canada, the Food and Consumer Products of Canada, the Packaging Association of Canada, the National Association for PET (polyethylene terephthalate) Container Resources (NAPCOR), the Canadian Plastics Industry Association, the Adhesive Sealants Council, Eco-Entreprises Quebec, Stewardship Ontario, the Recycling Council of Ontario, resin manufacturers, converters, consumer products companies, waste management processors, and recyclers.

“This collaborative and whole systems approach to addressing the issues is essential,” says Christian Shelepuk, Walmart Canada, waste reduction manager. He believes that collaborating with packaging and waste networks on the material optimization committee enabled Walmart to proactively explore ways to reduce the environmental impact of packaging.

The Material Optimization Committee ultimately elected to focus on thermoformed non-bottle rigid plastic containers. These are often used as clear food containers for salads, strawberries, veggies and take-out meals, as well as non-food clamshell packaging used for toys and electronics.

Canadian grocery retailer Loblaw Companies Limited, who serves over 14 million customers a week, came on board to address the same challenge. To better understand the core issue, they approached NAPCOR regarding recycling thermoformed plastic packaging. In their 2011 Corporate Social Responsibility report, Loblaws indicated that all clamshells (except hot case items such as roasted chicken) – had been transitioned to PET representing more than 250 control brands in their bakery and produce categories.

“All clamshells used in our stores, except for hot case items, are now made from a single type of PET resin, better enabling recycling through curbside collection. In 2011, we converted 34 control brand products to PET bringing our total to more than 250 control brand products primarily in our bakery and produce categories.” –Loblaw 2011 CSR report

NAPCOR collects data on the volume of PET thermoforms in the North American market and estimates the thermoforms available for recycling at more than 1.6 billion pounds and growing. “Very little of this material was being recycled in North America in 2009,” says Kate Eagles of NAPCOR.

NAPCOR identified three key barriers affecting the recycling of PET thermoform containers:

1. The presence of lookalike materials such as poly-vinyl chloride and poly-lactic acid that are difficult for Materials Recovery Facilities to manually sort and separate
2. Labels and adhesives on containers that are difficult for re-processors to remove
3. Fluorescent additives that are a contaminant for end markets such as the carpet industry

To address these concerns, NAPCOR partnered with the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers to develop an industry protocol for evaluating PET thermoform labels and adhesives for compatibility with PET Recycling. Labels and adhesives that meet the protocol and other guidelines are posted on the APR website.

“It is important to work through the technical and design features before bringing new packaging to market,” according to Resa Dimino, director of public policy at NAPCOR.

Expanding the group of collaborators

In 2010, other major retailers (Sobeys, Metro, Costco and Safeway) joined Walmart and Loblaws on the Sustainable Packaging Working Group to pursue the recycling of PET thermoforms as a grocery industry initiative, and encouraged all major grocery retailers to use APR protocol compliant labels and adhesives. The group continues to operate under the Retail Council of Canada, led by Allen Langdon, the Retail Council’s vice-president of sustainability.

“To expand this initiative, we are working with all our members to encourage recycling of all PET thermoforms, regardless of size, and the adoption is growing rapidly as several general merchandise retailers are proactively addressing this important issue,” states Langdon.

Stewardship Ontario joined the zero waste mission too, recycling thermoforms on behalf of retailers and brand owners in Ontario by working with the Continuous Improvement Fund as well as with participating municipalities – launching a ‘Plastic Is In” campaign promoting the collection of thermoform containers.

NAPCOR supported the zero waste mission by conducting production trials with several PET bottle re-claimers, backed by staff and financial support from Stewardship Ontario, Waste Diversion Ontario, Canadian Plastics Industry Association; and, the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers.

In 2011, Walmart Canada informed their suppliers of their intention to further advance their zero waste goal by making several changes: Removing PVC from all rigid plastic private label packaging by January 2012, “Non acceptance” of fluorescent additives in private label packaging; and transitioning in-store thermoformed rigid plastic packaging to PET where possible to address the issue of lookalike containers. Similar independent actions were taken by Canadian grocery retailers Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, Safeway and Costco.

Is it working? Evidence-based evaluation reports are optimistic

Recovery of PET thermoformed Packaging

NAPCOR reported, in 2010, that eight million pounds of PET thermoformed packaging was recovered in North America. By 2011, the first year Canadian grocery retailers started taking actions to address the barriers to efficient recycling of PET thermoforms, that number jumped to 45 million pounds. Preliminary 2012 estimates indicate the volume of recovered material should be over 100 million pounds.

GHG Reduction

NAPCOR’s 2010 report showed GHG reduction associated with the recycling of PET thermoforms at 4,600 metric tonnes. During the first year of implementation in 2011, this figure increased to 25,900 metric tonnes. In 2012, preliminary GHG reduction estimates are 57,000 metric tonnes and are on a trajectory to reduce GHG’s by additional 80,000 metric tonnes this year.

Increased Economic Value

Prior this collaborative initiative, less than 1% of the 1.2 billion pounds of PET thermoformed packaging in North America was recycled. Thus, the material market value was very low. Today is a different story. The current value of blended bales of PET bottles and thermoforms is in the range of $375 – $460 per metric tonne picked up at the material recycling facility.

Closing the Loop

Blue Mountain Plastics, a division of Ice River Springs Water Company, developed a unique process to recycle post-consumer PET thermoforms co-mingled with PET bottles. Blue Mountain has been very active in engaging municipalities in Ontario to encourage them to begin collecting thermoform plastic containers in the Ontario Blue box program. Ice River Springs operates the largest “closed-loop” PET recycling system in Canada and sells private-label bottled-water to Canadian & US retailers. This means that “Ontario consumers now have the convenience of recycling both their PET bottles and PET thermoforms using the curbside Blue Box program,” says Ryan L’Abbé, Vice President of Blue Mountain Plastics. Blue Mountain Plastics purchases PET thermoforms and bottle bales at over sixty Ontario materials recycling facilities and reprocesses them at their facility in Shelburne, Ontario. Washed flakes are then sent to Ice River Springs who then produce food-grade PET pellets and new bottles using the recycled PET. Ice River Springs then fills these “re-born” bottles with water at one of their nine bottling facilities located across Canada and the United States, beginning their trip through the system all over again.

Backed by evidence-based results, more North American retailers, importers and brand owners are encouraged to adopt strategies to remove barriers to the efficient recycling of PET thermoforms. On the collection side, more municipalities have a real stake in supporting the recycling industry too. In addition to benefiting the environment, recycling creates ten times more jobs than simple waste disposal, and seven jobs are created for every 1000 tonnes of waste recycled.

Collaboration has been a powerful ally. The urgency of the sustainability issues affecting the future of business, people and the environment, requires a holistic and integrated approach that taps into the collective strengths of the diverse partners – like that practiced by this powerful food packaging collaborative.

To view the complete collaboration series, click here.

The post The power of collaboration for creating sustainable value: Vol. 4 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

As the largest food retailer, Loblaw interacts with one-third of Canadian consumers from coast-to-coast. This places them in a strong position to lead change throughout the entire retail industry. “This includes our commitment to responsible sourcing of seafood sold in our 1000-plus retail locations, by the end of 2013,“ says Melanie Agopian, Senior Director, Sustainability, Loblaw Companies. “Source with Integrity is one of our five corporate responsibility (CSR) principles driving the way we do business, across the entire supply chain,” she added.

As Galen Weston, the Executive Chairman of Loblaw sees it, this commitment to influence market and industry change is more than a business opportunity for Loblaw. The issue of sustainable seafood is something that needs to see immediate change for future development too.

In spite of Loblaw’s market reach, their whole systems approach to sustainable seafood cannot be achieved without partnerships. That is where WWF-Canada comes into play.

“WWF-Canada has provided conservation and environmental technical expertise on sustainable seafood,” Agopian says. “They also have a diverse and global network from which to pull additional resources and expertise, and a great deal of experience driving transformational industry change.”

Call to action

The big issue that both partners are working to address is the devastating ecological and economic crisis created by a significant and growing decline in fish stocks. WWF points out that our oceans were once considered an inexhaustible source of food, but due to overfishing and poor management our oceans are now in a state of global crisis.

“The failure to adequately invest in recovery and sustainable use of fisheries negatively impacts its associated environment, social and economic benefits,” says Hadley Archer, VP, Strategic Partnerships & Development WWF-Canada. The World Bank and FAO – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations – estimate that losses from inefficient fisheries amount to $50 billion annually, with the cumulative loss over the past three decades being around $2 trillion. “These numbers represent recoverable losses with exports worth more than $85 billion in 2008, and related economic activity generated in the range of $500 billion per year,” he says.

Closer to home, Atlantic Canada could recover losses estimated at a billion dollars annually with adequate investment in recovery. WWF and Loblaw, together with fishing industry, are working to do just that.

A coordinated response

As a retail giant, Loblaw’s access to marketing tools, global vendor networks, and overall company scope grants unique accessibility to a new market that WWF is not accustomed to. Likewise for Loblaw, being able to harness the expertise that WWF offers has been integral to designing an effective program.

“For WWF, a big advantage of partnering with Loblaw on this important project is that we can actually accelerate the achievement of measurable results, and create a new benchmark on how private sector business can work collaboratively with organizations and groups with complementary expertise – aligned around shared transformational goals”, says Steven Price, Conservation Science Director at WWF-Canada.

When working with government alone to address the overfishing issue, WWF was not seeing sufficient movement. It was clear that WWF had to engage with the private sector if they wanted to see more tangible results.

To illustrate how influential private sector companies are and why they need to get more actively involved in this market transformation: 300-500 companies control 70% or more of the trade of the world’s most essential commodities. “If these companies demand sustainable products, they’ll pull 40-50% of production with them”, says Jason Clay, Senior Vice President, Market Transformation, WWF-US.

If ten percent of those 300-500 companies were to think differently about how they source seafood, and worked in collaboration with the fishing industry and environmentalists to seek alternatives, a transformation of the market would already be underway.

In order to be a leader in today’s increasingly competitive markets, sustainable business plans and projects influencing environmental platforms can deliver a major advantage. As Canada’s largest food distributor with more than 1,000 corporate and franchise stores nation-wide, the impact Loblaw can have – on consumer attitudes and decisions and as a model for other industries in leveraging their sustainable practices – is enormous.

Measuring success

“Our seafood initiative also brings certified seafood to the Loblaw stores that meet the standards of the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) for all of their seafood-affiliated products, from fresh to canned fish, and non-seafood products with fish ingredients such as pet food”, says WWF-Canada’s Conservation Director, Steven Price.

MSC standards and certification requirements ensure that only seafood from a certified sustainable fishery is sold with the MSC eco-label and meet best practice guidelines for certification and eco-labeling.

Another integral sustainable seafood collaborator is Loblaw’s Marine Scientific Advisor, Dr. Jeff Hutchings from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia. Dr. Hutchings has helped in successfully identifying sustainable seafood for Loblaw counters and has contributed insight into the fishing industry and at risk species.

“We live in the country with the longest coastline in the world and our rich heritage in fishing extends back more than 500 years,” Hutchings says. “As Canadians, we cannot afford to ignore our collective responsibility to recover the health of what lives in the oceans.”

Through the development of Sustainable Seafood Sourcing Criteria, and the expertise of WWF and Dr. Hutchings, Loblaw aims to evaluate the sustainability of species in order to better serve their customers with responsibly sourced and sustainable seafood. Progress updates are captured in both the annual Loblaw CSR Report and Sustainable Seafood Commitment Report.

De-listing at-risk products

Through the sustainable seafood initiative, Loblaw companies successfully identified products they had been carrying that did not comply with MSC standards. Dr. Hutchings’ expertise also allowed Loblaw to identify ‘at-risk’ species, and where and how to make changes to their CoC (chain-of-custody) certified seafood counters.

Since this collaboration, Loblaw has made changes to their seafood counters. In 2009, Shark, Skate, Orange Roughy, and Chilean Sea Bass were delisted from stores. More recently, in 2012, American red snapper was also delisted.

Delisted products do not just disappear from Loblaw’s counters. The goal is to bring Loblaw’s customers along on the journey – to engage, educate, and build new levels of customer loyalty. To make a powerful visual statement to consumers, Loblaw displays their removed at-risk and unsustainable fish with empty containers in the fresh seafood section, with suggested alternatives.

Loblaw is actively shaping a new way of purchasing seafood, one that is sustainable, and promotes knowledge behind the sourcing of fish stock. With the power of collaboration and multiple forces, Loblaw aims to source sustainable products and bring them back to customers in stores once they are confident the sourcing is transparent.

The flexible and collaborative nature of this partnership makes it a successful model for driving positive environmental and economic change. When Canada’s largest grocery retailer commits to healthy oceans and sustainable fishing practices, it is clear that long-term profitability is not at odds with environmental sustainability.

To view the complete collaboration series, click here.

The post The power of collaboration for creating sustainable value: Vol. 3 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Unlike traditional buildings, a NetZero home is capable of producing as much energy as it consumes. The result is lower utility costs – much more affordable for hard-working families – and reduced impact on the environment.

The NetZero home project was initiated in late 2011 by Lafarge – the largest diversified supplier of construction materials in the U.S. and Canada. They had been providing strong support for Habitat for Humanity on both the international and local levels for over seven years. And they had work relationships with Stantec’s sustainable design leader, Klaas Rodenburg, and others on his team. So it was a natural fit to invite Habitat and Stantec to make the project a reality.

The strategy they agreed on was to test the concept in practice by actually doing a build – discovering and addressing challenges as they arose.

“From the start”, says Rodenburg, “we adopted a mindset of shared learning and action in order to break traditional barriers and to speed up the design and delivery of this NetZero duplex. We wanted to co-create a model that can be applied elsewhere.”

With such an open learning strategy, it was imperative to do the project through a non-profit builder.

“Habitat for Humanity was the perfect choice,” says Don Zakariasen, Marketing Director of Concrete Products at Lafarge Canada. “They have the building expertise. And they have a strong philosophy of providing a hand up to deserving families.”

A partnership for continuous learning

Habitat for Humanity’s Edmonton CEO, Alfred Nikolai, was quick to agree. He knows firsthand the importance of building sustainable and affordable homes that meet local community challenges.

“This was an opportunity to take our housing to the next level,” Nikolai explained, “addressing some of the environmental, economic and energy issues that we face in Edmonton.” During Edmonton’s cold winter months, heating and electricity costs are high.

He goes on to say that “as a charity, Habitat is an expert in mobilizing volunteers and community partners to bring our affordable home ownership model to hard working families.” The NetZero energy project has been enthusiastically embraced by Habitat’s partners in the community, the corporate sector, small business sector, by individuals and municipal and provincial governments.

As Nikolai says, “This project gives us the opportunity to share our collaborative building and stakeholder engagement expertise with a new and diverse group of partners – all focused on the same end game.”

The “shared learning and action,” that Rodenburg describes, informs every aspect of the NetZero project. Continuous learning – every day, on every task – helps move the group closer to their ultimate goal of improving the design and construction of buildings everywhere, and making them a healthier part of the environment.

That learning will continue even after the first NetZero duplex property is built. A research team from MIT in Boston will monitor the building with a number of inside and outside sensors and Habitat for Humanity will make utility bills available. Together, the data will be used to calibrate the modeling and compare it to other Habitat buildings with identical floor plans in similar environments. This data will be shared with the rest of the industry as we build our knowledge on moving towards NetZero buildings.

Environmental balance

Habitat makes sure that their new homeowners are not burdened with a big monthly payment, by capping their mortgage payments at 25% of family income. The NetZero model advances this objective, by trying to reduce their energy bills to as close to zero as possible.

The homes incorporate a number of technologies to reduce the operating energy of the homes – including a high-performing precast concrete building envelope, thermal mass heat load leveling, solar photovoltaic cells, passive solar heating and geothermal heat pumps.

“Lafarge is very concerned about our impact on the environment,” says Don Zakariasen. “Our precast concrete group has implemented the Canadian Precast Concrete Institute (CPCI) sustainable plant program in our production facilities. The program lets us benchmark and measure the global warming potential and the embodied energy within our concrete products. Our goal is a documented, ongoing improvement in environmental performance.”

The NetZero project will highlight and demonstrate the overall benefits of the more sustainable concrete material – evaluating and documenting them in the MIT report.

Social and environmental value

The homes are connected to the power grid, but will be powered directly from solar sources whenever possible. They’ll only draw from the grid when necessary, at peak usage times expected mostly during the winter.

Power will also be sold back to the power grid when the homes are able to generate a surplus. This will help the duplex owner’s manage their energy costs.

“If our calculations are correct”, says Stantec’s Rodenburg, “the power we draw from the grid, and the power we put back, will balance to zero.” But there is always the human factor.

“We know the performance of the solar panels – we have a solar array on Stantec’s South Tower that we’ve been monitoring for two years. The thing we cannot model is the people living in the homes and their behaviour in using energy. According to [Edmonton’s electricity provider] EPCOR, a family of four will use about 4.5 kW of power, and that’s what these solar panels are sized for.”

Other technologies are designed to use that energy more efficiently. The high-performance building envelope will provide air tightness as well as insulation. Thermal mass is also another very important consideration. Concrete has been criticized for the release of greenhouse gases during the traditional cement production process – though researchers are hard at work to develop more sustainable production techniques.

On the upside, though, concrete also delivers some positive environmental benefits, as a very effective “heat battery” – absorbing heat and slowly releasing it over time to smooth out and reduce overall energy usage.

It is a principle of Habitat for Humanity that the families who will own the homes contribute 500 hours of hands-on support during the construction phase. This provides them with first-hand learning about what goes into their homes, including the energy-saving systems. Upon completion in July, the families will take part in a ceremony with fellow collaborators, at a public ribbon-cutting celebration – after which they will move into their new homes.

“It’s always a spine-tingling moment to see people being given a key to their own homes,” says Keith Shillington, Stantec’s VP for Alberta – Edmonton Capital Region. “It is so gratifying. They’re so excited to have broken out of the cycle of only dreaming of owning a home – to actually become the owner of a house, one they also helped to build!”

Everyone benefits from this powerful collaboration

What makes this possible is the willingness of all partners to co-create solutions that address the very real environmental, economic and social issues we all face, now and in the future. It is a remarkable collaboration by a range of individuals and organizations:

Lafarge birthed the original idea for the NetZero building, and are providing and installing the precast concrete building materials.

Habitat is leading the build.

The City of Edmonton donated the land zoned for duplexes through the Cornerstones Grant Program.

Stantec Architecture designed the NetZero building.

The Alberta Chapter of the CaGBC sponsored the LEED for Homes certification and convinced a number of local sustainable design firms to collaborate in the project, including Kassian Dyck Associates, Clark Ecoscience and Sustainability, Eco Ammo and Eco Synergy.

The families contributed their “sweat equity” to the project, and will provide data on “the human factor” and how the house performs in real life.

And many others donated their time and expertise during the development and building of Canada’s first Precast NetZero duplex home in Edmonton.

Looking ahead

The core NetZero team of collaborators is confident that the lessons learned from this challenging project will make precast concrete a sustainable option for homes and multiple housing projects in the future, in Canada and abroad. They also envision the families living with great pride in these groundbreaking homes that they helped to build. This is our future. Collaboration works.

Key insights that we can all learn from

Whether the end goal is to build a sustainable home, develop a clean energy solution, or to create a social enterprise that unlocks the innate talents of elders or youth, we can all benefit from the key learning of this NetZero initiative – as collaborative agents of positive change:

The vision has to be clearly articulated as an actionable deliverable – one that emotionally and pragmatically inspires others to come on board as equal collaborators. Lafarge did this in spades by teaming up with Habitat for Humanity, a proven leader in providing homes for deserving families.

The core group needs to agree on a strategy of learning and transparency to enable the collaborators to design, study, refine and build product as a means for creating sustainable value that positively impacts business and society, and can be adapted by others.

Collaborating differently – with traditional collaborators but in unique ways, or with non-traditional partners – is a powerful means for accelerating the discovery and development of value creating opportunities that benefit everyone.

To view the complete collaboration series, click here. 

The post The power of collaboration for creating sustainable value: Vol. 2 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Access to new reserves and resources, widening talent gaps, escalating financial and economic volatility, costs associated with energy, taxes and capital investment costs – are all examples of challenges that have reached new peaks and continue to impact industry. Not insignificant in and of themselves, these challenges pale in comparison to the bigger challenges in which they are enveloped: climate change, water scarcity, population explosions, aging infrastructure and mega shifts in how people communicate and interact.

Progressive organizations are responding by replacing old business paradigms – solely driven by short term gain and bottom line profit – with a more socially and environmentally responsible way of doing business. They are adopting a more collaborative and integrated approach to creating value that benefits business, society and future generations.

They recognize that the issues affecting our future sustainability impact all of us, beyond the boundaries of pure finance, and that they are too complex and far reaching to be resolved in isolation.

This article looks at some of the movers and shakers at the forefront of this new mindset who are collaborating within and outside of their respective industries to affect positive change for the greater good: Holcim, Environmental Defence and Steam Whistle Brewing.

“Whether partnering with an NGO or company, shared purpose and the transparent exchange of information are important pre-requisites for collaboration.” – GlobeScan/SustainAbility Survey, Collaborating for a Sustainable Future’

Holcim and Environmental Defence – Finding a common ground

As one of the world’s leading suppliers of cement and aggregates (crushed stone, gravel and sand) – Holcim wanted to find a way to produce gravel in a more sustainable manner. And to do that, the company recognized it needed some help.

Enter sustainability-geared NGO, Environmental Defence. “Before, community groups typically found themselves at the mercy of massive gravel and sand operations with little consideration for their concerns,” says Rick Smith, former Executive Director of Environmental Defence. “Business strategies rarely included environmental and social responsibility as part of the equation.”

Collectively, the two bodies hashed out a short list of things required to create “green gravel”. The list would eventually provide the framework for the group known as Socially and Environmentally Responsible Aggregate (SERA).

“From its inception, SERA was an unconventional collaboration,” says Bill Galloway, Senior VP at Holcim. “While we knew we had a common interest to introduce a new approach to responsibly sourced construction materials, one of the most obvious challenges we faced was to be able to find common ground between the ENGOs, community groups and Ontario Aggregate operators.”

In 2012, the Aggregate Forum of Ontario (AFO) and SERA merged to create the Cornerstone Standards Council (CSC) – a one-of-a-kind collaboration between a number of aggregate industry, environmental, community and Aboriginal representatives that seeks to address the challenge of competing demands for construction materials, community planning and a healthier environment.

“CSC’s vision is a prosperous and environmentally and socially responsible aggregate materials industry,” says Lorne Johnson, Executive Director of Cornerstone Standards Council. “The collaborative approach taken by all of CSC’s participants is important to the development of these standards.”

In addition to holding operators accountable in the eyes of the various stakeholders, the voluntary, independently audited certification system will help them earn their social operating license by going above and beyond existing regulatory requirements on key social and environmental issues identified by CSC.

For a sector rife with conflict between operators, first nations and community groups these voluntary standards offer a new way forward.

“Ontario was ground zero for this change. It faces great development pressures which give rise to high demand for aggregate materials, but also means that the sites and their operations are increasingly in conflict with communities and the environment” remarks Keith Brooks, Program Manager at Environmental Defence. But it was Environmental Defence and Holcim’s collaboration that paved the way for the new industry standards, creating the potential for a more sustainable aggregate industry. Community tree-planting initiatives at Dufferin’s Acton quarry are one such example of building social and environmental value.

“The Ontario aggregates industry itself is highly fragmented, consisting of 10 to 12 large companies and about 90 small- to medium-sized operators, and is generally quite conservative when it comes to change,” says Galloway. “With CSC, we are introducing a new way of planning and doing business.” The collaboration also shows the role that a company looking to do things a little differently can play in building a more sustainable industry.

Smith points out that CSC echoes a trend being undertaken by many sectors. “The emphasis on creating value that benefits business as well as the environment and local communities has skyrocketed,” say Smith.

Looking ahead, as the value on sustainable and restorative business practices is more commonly recognized as a means to meeting the escalating challenges of climate change and resource constraints, this trend will likely continue to expand.

Steam Whistle Brewing – community growth through the arts

For a company like Steam Whistle Brewing, providing a social product goes hand in hand with community engagement.

“Our slogan on the neck of every bottle, The Good Beer Folks, signifies our focus on product quality, being good employers, and building a sense of community inside and outside our business”, says Sybil Taylor, Communications Manager.

Since the company’s inception in 2000, Steam Whistle has sponsored over 600 community, cultural, and charitable events a year including concerts and exhibits for emerging musicians and visual artists.

The brewery itself, located in the iconic John Street Roundhouse – a historic site used by Canadian Pacific to service steam passenger trains – has become a de facto art space, hosting exhibits monthly, even participating in the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

“We are not just a manufacturer of a consumer product – we envisioned using our facility for other purposes right from the beginning” says Taylor. And it’s that understanding of how a company can give back to the community, which makes Steam Whistle stand out.

Take the company’s UNSIGNED concert series, for example. The regular event showcases Canada’s up and coming talent, with 100% of ticket sales feeding back into arts communities across the country.

It’s a prime example of how a company’s collaboration can help stimulate community growth – especially with an underfunded industry like the arts.

Everyone can do it

Regardless of size, focus, or sector, opportunities for creating shared value that positively impact the restoration of our environment, economy and society can be initiated by any leader inspired to take sustainability to the next level in collaboration with like minded visionaries in action. All it takes is the will, a compelling business case and support from executive sponsors and management with the right vision and resources.

To view the complete collaboration series, click here.

The post The power of collaboration for creating sustainable value: Vol. 1 appeared first on Corporate Knights.