Celebrating company champions: Sears' Katie Harper

Katie Harper is a manager at Sears Canada who’s responsible for sustainability in the supply chain. She’s also the Sears Canada champion for WWF-Canada’s Living Planet @ Work employee engagement program. We talked to Katie about how the program dovetails with her vision: nurturing a corporate culture that supports the retail giant’s message to consumers, “Live Green.” Read on for excerpts from that interview.

(c) Adrienne Lo/WWF-Canada
“Ever since I was a kid I’ve been interested in the environment, so it was natural for me to study biology in university. But my other great passion is connecting with people and getting them excited about conservation. I first started thinking about the role business could play in shifting us towards sustainability in grad school. I had been invited to bring an environmental science perspective to a course for management students at McGill. That’s when I first heard about leaders like Paul Hawken and Ray Anderson, who were driving sustainability in the business world. This position allows me to put it all together by working to involve our employees in helping Sears reduce its environmental impact.
“Prior to joining the Living Planet @Work program, I had been focused on green teams in our stores and distribution centres. Through WWF, we were able to expand our efforts to Head Office, where we recruited a Green Team in January 2010. To launch the program, we conducted a surprise “apple drop”: we visited workstations after hours and left a fresh Ontario apple for everyone who had logged off their computer and turned off their lights. They also got a note from Frankie, our Green Team “Spokesracoon”, thanking them for saving energy. There was quite a buzz when people came to work in the morning – everyone was checking to see who else got an apple.
“This fall we focused on energy again, with weekly trivia and profiles of associates who are energy heroes at home. Just recently we hosted a retirement party for our lunchroom fridges, which we’re replacing with new ENERGY STAR® models that use 30-40 percent less electricity than the old ones. The retirement party was kind of a fun and silly way to bring people together, but it provided the backdrop to talk about energy efficiency and appliance recycling.
“Our green team’s informal motto is “we conserve, we participate, we inspire through fun”. The long-term goal is as much about creating a culture of engagement and pride as it is about reducing our footprint. Employee engagement brings all kinds of benefits to an organization – from attracting top talent, to higher retention of staff and increased productivity – and sustainability is a great tool to foster a sense of engagement. The green team itself is an example of this idea: talented, busy people from across the organization volunteer their time for this program. Part of the appeal is working on something they believe in. But I think they also like the chance to flex their creativity, develop different skills and work with people outside their usual sphere.
“We have a responsibility to reduce the impact of our business operations. In 2008 we set targets to reduce our carbon footprint by 20 percent by 2013. In our facilities, we’ve converted most of the lighting, starting with T12 to T8 conversions several years ago. This year, we completed LED spotlight pilots in six stores. For every store we retrofit with LEDs, it’s like taking 6-9 homes off the grid. We’ve been reducing the amount of paper we use and put in place a sustainable paper procurement policy. We now have much greater transparency into our paper supply chain, with at least 50 percent of the fibre coming from certified sustainable forestry operations. Of course there’s a lot more to do, but sustainability is becoming more visible within the company and is being taken as a serious corporate initiative.
“It’s exciting to see the way that sustainability is being integrated into our business. Our colleagues are finding ways we can – in the words of Ray Anderson – do well by doing good. With our broad reach across the country, we have a unique opportunity to help Canadians solve their environmental challenges, especially when it comes to saving energy.
“For example, take a refrigerator: if you look across its entire lifecycle – from raw materials, to assembly and transport, to use and finally end-of-life – more than 90 percent of its carbon footprint is generated when it’s plugged in at home. So it’s a priority for us to work with our vendors to offer a wide selection of high efficiency appliances. At the same time, we need to help our customers understand the value of energy efficiency. We talk about how old appliances actually cost more in the long run in electricity. We created tools like the Cost and Carbon Savings Calculator that help our customers understand the benefits – for them and for the planet – of replacing old energy-hogging appliances with energy-efficient models.
“Canadians are already trying to do their part, and Sears is working to make it easier for them to live a little greener. In fact, while we continue to reduce our footprint internally, partnering with our customers can make an even bigger difference. Our completed building retrofits are saving about 49,000 MWh/year. We can help Canadians save the equivalent by replacing 115 thousand 15-year old refrigerators with new ENERGY STAR® models.”