Green team as accelerators of sustainability action

Leverage internal Green Team and external sustainability associations to increase influence and bandwidth to implement initiatives. Allocate dedicated staff to lead sustainability volunteers. Executives can embrace into values loudly to create a company-wide culture of sustainability & social impact.

The company provides marketing and business services to companies marketing new technologies. The company joined Sustainable Waterloo Region (SWR), a not for profit organization that helps businesses and organizations achieve carbon, water, and waste reductions through collaboration and education. Quarry participated as a volunteer in a working group to help SWR determine a Carbon Reduction Framework for future members and now also includes waste and water reduction targets. They began working on the creation of a GHG Reduction Action Plan toolkit, which enabled members to conduct preliminary energy audits, identify cost-effective GHG reduction projects, and communicate their action plan to management teams. The organization realized they could reduce their energy bill by 18% with a short-term payback period for the capital investment required. 

The company established an internal Green Team and created a formal framework to guide their activities, titled the “eQo Environmental Strategy”. This framework allows them to work on a more consistent basis, and has five focus areas: net zero carbon emissions, environmental stewardship, employee engagement, community engagement, and public/client awareness of Quarry’s sustainability values. The strategy includes several ambitious long term goals over the next ten years: 

• 90% GHG emission reductions from 2015 levels, with the remaining emissions offset
• Zero waste processes, artifacts, events, and client deliverables
• Capping individual business trip emissions with 5% annual emissions reductions overall, and 
• 80% of employees use a green method of transportation 50% of the time.

The partnership with SWR moved the organization’s sustainability practices forward. As the organization’s leadership recognized sustainability was a value sought by employees, the internal Green Team benchmarked the organization against local firms to remain competitive in attracting talented employees. Further, as some of Quarry’s clients see themselves as sustainability leaders and an increasing number of potential clients are requesting sustainability audits in addition to technical audits, they have leveraged their knowledge on GHG emissions reduction to expand business value.

Early on, the organization also recognized that some sustainability initiatives also have significant cost savings. For example, waste reduction initiatives have enabled them to reduce the frequency of waste pickups, and the COCW initiative allows them to realize utility savings by putting the building into an unoccupied state each Wednesday. While cost savings, employee attraction, and competitive advantages were not the initial reasons for taking on sustainability practices, Quarry is beginning to realize these additional benefits and they may help continue to drive these practices forward.