Sustainable futures for a new generation: 'Canada's Greenest Employers' for 2019 are announced

TORONTO, April 15, 2019 /CNW/ - You don't have to ask young people like Swedish student activist Greta Thunberg (just 16 years old) or recently elected US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (29) to find out what they think about sustainability – they'll tell you. Around the world, young people are speaking up to deliver a simple message to governments and companies: society expects them to be environmentally responsible.  That's also the message from this year's Canada's Greenest Employers, announced this morning by the editors of the Canada's Top 100 Employers project at Mediacorp Canada Inc.

"As more young people enter the workforce, more employers are realizing the importance of having sustainable workplaces," says Richard Yerema, Managing Editor of the Canada's Top 100 Employers project. "Young employees ask themselves 'what will my world look like in 20 years?' – and they expect their employers to do things differently for a better future.  As editors, we now see deep support for sustainability across almost every industry – you can see it in the variety of employers on this year's list."

Now in its 12^th year, Canada's Greenest Employers is an editorial competition that recognizes employers that lead the nation in creating a culture of environmental awareness. Winning employers, selected by editors of Canada's Top 100 Employers, are evaluated using four main 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, attracting new employees or customers.

Some notable initiatives at this year's winners singled out by the editors include:

• TD Bank recently announced a significant $100 billion investment by 2030 in the development of the low-carbon economy – as part of the initiative, TD employees will be focusing on lending to companies and projects with low-carbon operations as well as supporting local environmental projects across the country.
  
  
• Employees at Victoria-based Nature's Path care for a large organic staff garden at the company's head office, which also features an 11-stream recycling station that captures everything from styrofoam to batteries – two of the company's manufacturing plants are certified as zero-waste facilities by the US Zero Waste Business Council.
  
  
• Toronto-based furniture manufacturer Keilhauer has a special employee design team that meets early in the design of each new product to evaluate its environmental impact – from material selection and manufacturing to product maintenance and end-of-life recycling, all the company's products are designed to be repairable and come with a long warranty.
  
  
• Employees at Burlington, Ont.-based IKEA Canada LP maintain an in-house 'sustainability scorecard' to help the housewares retailer develop more environmentally friendly products – the company aims to have 90 per cent of its sales from products rated as 'more sustainable' by 2020.

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 18 regional and special-interest editorial competitions that reach over 15 million Canadians annually through a variety of magazine and newspaper partners. Mediacorp also operates Eluta.ca, a large job search engine that includes editorial reviews from the Canada's Top 100 Employers project and is used by almost 8 million users in Canada each year. Mediacorp also hosts the Top Employer Summit, Canada's largest conference for senior-level HR professionals, taking place this year on November 25-26, 2019 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto.

The full list of Canada's Greenest Employers (2019) and detailed reasons for selection, explaining why each of the winners was chosen, were released this morning and are available via the competition homepage.  The editorial reasons for selection include hundreds of photos and additional stories on the winning employers' environmental initiatives.

Follow the discussion on social media today under the #GreenEmployers hashtag.

SOURCE Mediacorp Canada Inc.

Kristina Leung, Senior Editor, at 416-964-6069 x1464.