Adopting environmentally sustainable business practices is not just the right thing to do from an ethical perspective, it is also one of the best ways Ontario companies can reduce costs, create jobs, and improve profitability, panelists said.

As World Wildlife Fund Canada President Gerald Butts put it, “Going green is not just the right thing to do; it’s the smart thing to do. The companies that are going to be successful are the ones who see this not as corporate social responsibility, but as a profitability initiative.”

Galen Weston, executive chair of Loblaw Companies Limited, said businesses align their different approaches to greening their operations with their own underlying business philosophies. He provided several examples in which Loblaws had taken leadership in green initiatives, been rewarded financially, and driven changes across whole food industry.

“We cannot drive all actions alone, though,” Weston said. “So we urge governments and NGOs to call upon us. . . . We can be more effective when we work together.”

Producing or selling green products are not the only ways to have a positive impact on businesses, though. Paul Rak, president of VeriGreen/Veriform Inc., said that even small internal changes in the way companies do business can have a major impact on the bottom line. His company has increased sales, expanded its facilities, and still managed to cut energy consumption by undertaking a number of simple projects, such as changing light bulbs or installing tankless water heaters.

Over the last three years, VeriGreen/Veriform has more than doubled its sales per kilowatt of energy. “We took the words ‘profit’ and ‘green’ and used them in the same sentence; it’s not an oxymoron,” Rak said.

 Written by the Conference Publishers

Tags: What's happening - OES 2009

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