Bullfrog Power is an inspiring Canadian green energy success story. Since 2005 Bullfrog pioneers in providing easy solutions for large businesses like Walmart, Unilever, and RBC as well as individuals to power their homes and offices with 100% renewable energy. At their tenth anniversary I talk to CEO Ron Seftel on how the green energy landscape has evolved and how businesses may position themselves for the anticipated changes from our new climate-friendly federal and provincial governments.
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Carbon49 – Sustainability for Canadian businesses: Green Energy Pioneer Bullfrog Power Talks Energy Landscape
Bullfrog Power is an inspiring Canadian green energy success story. Since 2005 Bullfrog pioneers in providing easy solutions for large businesses like Walmart, Unilever, and RBC as well as individuals to power their homes and offices with 100% renewable energy. At their tenth anniversary I talk to CEO Ron Seftel on how the
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: Collaborate to Conserve: The Rise of Business-Municipality Water Initiatives
As the creation of the Water Program by the Carbon Disclosure Project shows, managements and investors increasingly recognize the importance of the water-energy nexus and water-related risks. Businesses across Canada are collaborating with municipalities on innovative water conservation projects. With free water audit and financial incentives for capital retrofits, municipalities are helping companies like
Continue readingCarbon49 – Sustainability for Canadian businesses: Collaborate to Conserve: The Rise of Business-Municipality Water Initiatives
As the creation of the Water Program by the Carbon Disclosure Project shows, managements and investors increasingly recognize the importance of the water-energy nexus and water-related risks. Businesses across Canada are collaborating with municipalities on innovative water conservation projects. With free water audit and financial incentives for capital retrofits, municipalities are helping companies like
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: Four Ways to Reduce Your Business Travel Carbon Footprint
What is your carbon footprint? Each Canadian causes 15 tons of CO2 emission per year, American 18 tons, Australian 17 tons, Dutch 11 tons, German 9 tons, British 8 tons, Chinese 6 tons, Indian 2 tons. How much of these emissions are caused by business travels? What can you do
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: The New Sustainability Advantage: Book Review
Proactively incorporating sustainability into a business’ core strategy can increase profits by 51 to 81%, according to corporate sustainability expert and author Bob Willard. His book The New Sustainability Advantage and the companion online tools lay out seven strategies and estimate potential returns. Both sustainability professionals and corporate executives can
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: Rethinking LEED: Four Essential Elements
The LEED green building rating systems have their fair share of criticism. But what might a better rating system look like? Architect and Founder of the New Urban Guild Steve Mouzon lays out his views with four essential elements. It was a great idea in the beginning, but the LEED rating systems have
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: WWF Offer Free Tools for Corporate Sustainability Initiatives
Need some help driving your office’s green initiatives? WWF Canada offers free downloadable tools including getting-started guides, spreadsheets, benchmarks, campaign poster templates for green initiatives on energy reduction, paper reduction, waste reduction, travel, procurement, and green team building. I find some of the tools very useful. As mentioned in an
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: Four Green Initiatives Employees Are Sure to Embrace
Who wouldn’t want to work in an engaging office environment? An engaged workforce makes a happier workplace and promotes a culture of collaboration and creativity, as numerous studies show. Corporate green initiatives are some of the best ways to engage employees. Here are four ideas that are simple to run
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: The Greenest Companies Consistently Outperform Markets
Apple, BMW, LG, HP, Coca-Cola, and Walmart are among the 187 companies cited by non-profit Carbon Disclosure Project for doing the most to combat climate change. These green warriors also outperform the Bloomberg World Index. Five Canadian companies made this elite group. I find out how their stock prices compare to
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: Telus Launch Green Rooftop with Community Garden
Office building green roofs tend to be a ‘spectator sport’: look but don’t touch. Telus, one of the Big-Three telecom in Canada, launch their participatory rooftop garden in their downtown Toronto building where staff are encouraged to seed, water, weed, and harvest the vegetables. I talk to Sameer Panjwani, National
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: Green Buildings Bring Vertical Forests to the City
Visually stunning and environmentally progressive condo buildings and office towers are appearing in Europe and Asia in recent years, including the Bosco Verticale in Milan, Hearst Tower in New York, and Urban Cactus in Rotterdam. Corporations and condo developers take note … whoever construct the first of this type of
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: Creative Funding for Green Startups
You are an entrepreneur with a fantastic idea for a green startup. You go to the bank for funding but they turn you down. What do you do? Fear not, green warriors! We will show you five non-traditional funding sources for social and environmental startups, including crowd funding and peer-to-peer
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: The Transformational Company: CBSR Summit
The 11th Annual Summit by Canadian Business for Social Responsibility brought together an international panel of leaders to address how corporate social responsibility practitioners can lead their companies onto a transformational path. Keynote speaker John Elkington showed how enterprises can set and achieve bold goals that touch their core business while
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: How Small Green Team Can Transform Large Corporation
Small green teams tasked with transforming large corporations, governments, cities, and neighborhoods face some tough challenges. TD Bank’s three-person green team employed a range of strategies to inject sustainability thinking into 27,000 employees dispersed in 1,300 locations. I find four of their tactics very smart and can be readily adapted
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: How to Run a Sustainability Event at Work: Do’s and Don’ts
Running a green event at work is a great way to engage employees on sustainability, which in turn can bring great bottom line rewards. LoyaltyOne, for example, dramatically reduced their staff turnover rate through employee engagement initiatives (see this post for more details). Whether you are planning for staff environmental
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: Employee Engagement Drives Sustainability Strategy
Have you considered how employee engagement can drive your sustainability strategy and how you can leverage sustainability initiatives to engage your employees and create a values-driven culture of collaboration and creativity? Let’s look into how Hewlett-Packard and Cadbury Schweppes do it, and how WWF can help. While the majority of employees
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: Sustainability: Canada’s Strengths and Weaknesses
A large scale study by OfficeMax Grand & Toy comparing Canadian companies to their world peers finds Canada leads in capturing cost reduction from sustainability initiatives but lags global leaders in driving profitability through collaboration. Broader collaborations with customers, suppliers, government and policy makers may be a key to unlocking the
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: The State of Impact Investing: Green Living Business Forum
What is the state of impact investing? The panel of experts from large institutional investors to small foundations at the 2013 Green Living Business Forum share their thoughts on the growth potential, risks and opportunities, and the valuation of social and environmental factors. Six common threads emerged from the discussion chaired
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: The Real Price We Pay for Fossil Fuel Energy
Did you know our government spend money subsidizing fossil fuel energy to keep prices artificially low? A new International Monetary Fund study uncovers just how much these subsidies are and urge our governments to stop these market distortion practices. I calculate the real price we pay for fossil fuel energy and
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