Sustainability is here to stay: Winners of 'Canada's Greenest Employers' for 2017 are announced
TORONTO, April 21, 2017 /CNW/ - As consumers and employees keep environmental concerns high on the public agenda, many forward-thinking organizations are making sustainability a permanent feature of their workplace culture. That's the message from this year's winners of the Canada's Greenest Employers competition, organized by Mediacorp Canada Inc., which is celebrating its 10th annual edition.
"When we started this competition a decade ago, the programs we wrote about were largely informal and incidental to an employer's principal business," says Richard Yerema, Managing Editor of the Canada's Top 100 Employers project at Mediacorp. "Over the years, we've seen a shift towards more formal programs and strategic sustainability policies, which reflect a long-term commitment on the part of employers. This year's winners aren't afraid to address the adverse impacts of their operations and are charting the course for others in their industry."
Canada's Greenest Employers is an editorial competition that recognizes the employers that lead the nation in creating a culture of environmental awareness. The winning employers, selected by the editors of Canada's Top 100 Employers, are evaluated on the following criteria: (1) unique environmental initiatives or programs they have developed; (2) whether they have been successful in reducing their own environmental footprint; (3) whether their employees are involved in these programs and contribute unique skills; and (4) whether their environmental initiatives have become linked to the employer's public identity to attract new people to the organization. The competition grew out of two remarkable speeches by Al Gore and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the annual editorial conference on the Top 100 project in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
Here are a few examples of how this year's winners incorporate environmental values into their organizational cultures:
- Burnaby, British Columbia-based BC Housing, an agency of the provincial government, administers an annual sustainability survey for all employees – the program has been so successful that over half their employees now take alternative transportation (bike, walk, or public transit) to work.
- Foodservice provider Aramark Canada, based in Toronto, encourages staff to connect with local farms and sustainable food producers through a program that supports the development of local food sources within 100 km.
- Electric utility Manitoba Hydro, based in Winnipeg, recently built Canada's first LEED Platinum office tower for its staff – the building includes over 10,000 electricity-usage sensors and automatic solar shading to minimize electricity consumption.
- Lévis, Québec-based Desjardins Group / Mouvement des caisses Desjardins focuses on encouraging alternative transportation to work by employees – thousands of its staff use carpooling, bike-sharing, shuttle buses and transit rebates provided by the company.
- Staff at the University of Alberta in Edmonton work with students on an innovative "Eco Move Out" program, which encourages departing students to donate or recycle electronics, non-perishable food items, clothing and household items – over 12,000 kg of goods were collected last year.
Founded in 1992, Mediacorp Canada Inc. is the nation's largest publisher of employment periodicals. Since 1999, the Toronto-based publisher has managed the Canada's Top 100 Employers project, which includes 19 regional and special-interest editorial competitions that reach over 15 million Canadians annually through a variety of magazine and newspaper partners, including the The Globe and Mail. Mediacorp also operates Eluta.ca, the largest Canadian job search engine, which includes editorial reviews from the Canada's Top 100 Employers project and is now used by over 7 million users in Canada each year. Together with Willis Towers Watson, Mediacorp also hosts the Top Employer Summit, Canada's largest conference for senior-level HR professionals.
The full list of this year's Canada's Greenest Employers is attached. The editors' detailed reasons for selection, explaining why each of the winning employers was selected, were posted online this morning at: http://www.canadastop100.com/green
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CANADA'S GREENEST EMPLOYERS 2017 WINNERS
Alectra Inc. (Vaughan ON)
Aramark Canada Ltd. (Toronto ON)
Assiniboine Credit Union Limited (Winnipeg MB)
BC Housing Management Commission (Burnaby BC)
BC Hydro (Vancouver BC)
Bell Canada (Montréal QC)
BlackBerry Limited (Waterloo ON)
Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited (Toronto ON)
Calgary, City of (Calgary AB)
Dalhousie University (Halifax NS)
Dentons Canada LLP (Vancouver BC)
Desjardins Group / Mouvement des caisses Desjardins (Lévis QC)
DIALOG (Vancouver BC)
Diamond Schmitt Architects Inc. (Toronto ON)
Durham College of Applied Arts and Technology (Oshawa ON)
EfficiencyOne (Dartmouth NS)
EllisDon Corporation (Mississauga ON)
Emterra Group (Burlington ON)
Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited (Oakville ON)
General Motors of Canada Company (Oshawa ON)
Griffith Foods Ltd. (Toronto ON)
Hatch Ltd. (Mississauga ON)
Hemmera Envirochem Inc. (Burnaby BC)
Home Depot of Canada Inc. (Toronto ON)
HP Canada Co. (Mississauga ON)
Humber College (Toronto ON)
IKEA Canada Limited Partnership (Burlington ON)
Ivanhoé Cambridge Inc. (Montréal QC)
Keilhauer Ltd. (Toronto ON)
KPMG LLP (Toronto ON)
Kwantlen Polytechnic University / KPU (Surrey BC)
Labatt Breweries of Canada (Toronto ON)
Ladysmith, Town of (Ladysmith BC)
LoyaltyOne, Co. (Toronto ON)
Manitoba Hydro (Winnipeg MB)
Metrolinx (Toronto ON)
Mohawk College (Hamilton ON)
Nature's Path Foods, Inc. (Richmond BC)
Ontario Public Service / OPS (Toronto ON)
Ottawa, City of (Ottawa ON)
Perkins+Will Canada Architects Co. (Vancouver BC)
Printing House Ltd., The / TPH (Toronto ON)
Provincial Health Services Authority / PHSA (Vancouver BC)
RBC (Toronto ON)
Red River College (Winnipeg MB)
Reunion Island Coffee Ltd. (Oakville ON)
Rogers Communications Inc. (Toronto ON)
SaskTel (Regina SK)
School District No. 36 (Surrey) (Surrey BC)
Sheridan Nurseries Limited (Georgetown ON)
Siemens Canada Limited (Oakville ON)
Sun Life Financial Inc. (Toronto ON)
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (Toronto ON)
Symcor Inc. (Mississauga ON)
TD Bank Group (Toronto ON)
TELUS Corporation (Vancouver BC)
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. / TMMC (Cambridge ON)
UBC / University of British Columbia (Vancouver BC)
Unilever Canada Inc. (Toronto ON)
University of Alberta (Edmonton AB)
University of Northern British Columbia / UNBC (Prince George BC)
University of Toronto (Toronto ON)
University of Victoria (Victoria BC)
Vancouver, City of (Vancouver BC)
Veridian Corporation (Ajax ON)
WalterFedy (Kitchener ON)
Western University (London ON)
Whistler Blackcomb (Whistler BC)
YMCA of Greater Toronto (Toronto ON)
York University (Toronto ON)
SOURCE Mediacorp Canada Inc.
Kristina Leung, Senior Editor, 416-964-6069 x1464
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