Are we green?

Being environmentally conscious is something that is taking on more of a priority in the minds of many of us. As a result, many of our staff have recently challenged us to make sure we are telling all of you how we practice being green.

This was an interesting question because we have actually done a pretty good job being ‘green’ over the years, however we have never had a formal program or mandate. What we do have is an internal culture that believes in recycling and reusing.

As much of what we do has been driven by our staff, we decided to ask them to share their thoughts on how we are doing. This seemed like a good starting point for sharing with all of you. Then we created this green page to tell you what they had to say.

As time goes by, we will make sure we update it as we achieve new goals in this area.

In our stores:

• Reducing
• Reusing
• Recycling
• Choosing

At our support and administration office:
(includes our Inside & Outside Sales areas, plus our Purchasing, Marketing and Warehouse)

• Reducing
• Reusing
• Recycling
• Choosing
• we print on recycled stock for customer promotions and office stationary as much as possible
• we actively encourage our customers to dispose of solvents and paint responsibly and provide information on where to do so
• many staff take transit or ride their bikes
• we use low energy bulbs and turn off our computers at night — simple steps mean a lot
• we are the ‘Watchers of Still Creek’ outside our building, which is a recovering spawning creek — if there are problems with the waterway we call the city to alert them
• we try to include eco-friendly products as regular sales items, this includes hemp and bamboo papers, recycled papers and pencils, low toxicity mediums and our new biodegradable foamcore
• we make it a point to buy environmentally friendly products that use recycled products in their making whenever possible
• we try to purchase via local suppliers and manufacturers as much as possible
• we ask our suppliers to be more aware about packaging (some of them are listening)

Ideas for future changes:

• change our account invoices to be sent via email rather than the usual paper trail
• continue to buy responsibly for products that we re-sell and for internal supplies
• develop an online ‘ECO PRODUCTS’ section in our online product catalogue, so customers can easily find all the eco-friendly products we carry
• repeat some of the customer outreach sessions we have done previously on ‘safe studio habits’ including non-toxic painting options
• take advantage of some of the incentives and programs available to businesses making ‘green’ improvements, such as BC Hydro and Live Smart BC, and the Clean Air Foundation