Cue the applause: Announcing our 2016 LP@W award winners

Our Annual Public Meeting last night was about more than sharing what WWF-Canada has accomplished in the past year. It was also an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the incredible contributions of our Living Planet @ Work sustainability champions. Although there were many inspiring examples to choose from, we narrowed it down to these three outstanding winners.

Sustainability Trailblazer

Rebecca Stewart remembers sitting at the Living Planet @ Work award ceremonies last year. At the time, she was an intern for The Printing House (TPH), working on the company’s first sustainability report. But as she watched the winners take to the stage, she made herself a promise: “That’s going to be me next year.”
Now a business development associate at TPH’s head office, Stewart spent the past year fulfilling that promise. She enrolled the company in Living Planet @ Work and launched a Smart Office Challenge, convincing her co-workers to turn off their computers at night and print double-sided.
In April, she inspired 10 colleagues to join her for the CN Tower Climb for Nature. To raise even more money, she and her roommate stayed up all night making panda cupcakes for a WWF bake sale. And when she proposed doing a shoreline cleanup on Toronto Island, her boss Scott Dillon gave the department the afternoon off. “Taking action together to support the environment has really brought us together as a team,” he says.
As Stewart proves, you don’t need formal training or years of experience to be a workplace sustainability champion — just the drive to make a difference. “To me, it means helping animals and ecosystems,” she says. “That’s the whole reason that I wanted us to become engaged with WWF.”

Excellence in Environmental Employee Engagement

OLG and its Bet on Green site teams have a long tradition of stepping up for sustainability through a wide range of environmental initiatives. This year, they took things up a notch with the development of a new and innovative employee engagement program.
With the help of LP@W and OLG’s Corporate Learning experts, OLG developed the Green Leadership Certificate — an online professional development program that gives OLG employees the tools they need to make an even bigger eco-impact. The program launched with five online learning modules designed to boost participants’ environmental knowledge, hone project management skills and engage their colleagues in environmental initiatives.
Launched in spring 2016, the initiative has proved a huge success. Already, more than 130 OLG staffers have earned their certificate, personally co-signed by OLG Executive Vice President Greg McKenzie and WWF CEO David Miller. Meanwhile, 300 more are in the process of achieving theirs.
For Paul Pellizzari, OLG Executive Director, Policy and Social Responsibility, it’s just one example of OLG’s deep-rooted commitment to corporate social responsibility. “I’m proud of our employees across the province giving back to the communities we serve,” he says. “By cultivating more environmental leaders within OLG, we’re building on that commitment and advancing our organization’s sustainability impact.”

Distinction in Workplace Giving for Nature

When Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Canada split from its parent company HP Canada in 2015, a lot of things changed — but not its commitment to sustainability. Managing director Charlie Atkinson and CFO Linda Sampson championed environmental initiatives from the top, while environmental programs manager Gillian Hrycko took care of the day-to-day details.
The new company hit the ground running. HPE participated in each of the three Spring Things initiatives this year and raised more money than any other group — an incredible $30,000. “It’s something our employees are passionate about,” says Sampson, who sat on our Spring Things Leadership Committee and participated in the Polar Dip and the CN Tower Climb.
With offices from coast to coast and many employees who telecommute, not everyone could attend the Spring Things events in person. But that didn’t stop volunteers across Canada from organizing bake sales, Arctic trivia events and reaching out to employees kids with drawing competitions.
“As a company, we really have a responsibility to think about sustainability because we have such a big impact,” says Hrycko. “I’m very proud of the work that WWF is doing and also proud that HPE gets to be a small part in the bigger picture of creating a better planet for all.”