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
• we have a water service so we do not consume a lot of water bottles
• we do not use paper plates or plastic forks in our lunchroom
• at staff meetings we choose ‘less packaging’ options pretty consistently, ie: a two litre bottle of juice instead of individual juice boxes or pop cans
• we use a laundry service that provides towels and linens instead of paper towels
• we have started replacing our lights with more energy efficient bulbs
• we turn the lights off in the bathroom when we are finished!
• 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

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