Success Story - At Work
ISL Engineering and Land Services Ltd., Edmonton
From recycling to composting, ISL Engineering and Land Services Ltd is re-routing thousands of kilograms of waste from the local landfill each year. Their composting program alone diverts over 190 kilograms of waste each month, and a large quantity of paper and recyclable materials are sent to their respective facilities. Altogether, they are keeping approximately 75 per cent of their waste from entering the landfill. Edmonton’s ISL Engineering and Land Services Ltd. has over 160 employees committed to the new office-wide compost and recycling program.
Office Sustainability Team members Danica Staudt and Arinna Grittani say these incredible results would not be possible without the support of the company, which formed a Corporate Sustainability Team and encouraged them to develop a Sustainability Action Plan for 2008 and 2009.
“We are the first office in Edmonton of this size to implement a system to divert compost through the City of Edmonton,” said Grittani. “We put in a lot of effort at the beginning devising a plan that would work effectively, but the good news for the next office that decides to this, is that we’ve already come up with a system.”
“Having company support is critical to an effort such as this, we came up with a new idea and received a lot of support from the Board of Directors.”, said Staudt.
Other office-wide efforts include converting all photocopier paper to 100 per cent recycled and placing recycling bins throughout the office; posting instructions on changing default printing settings to double-sided; photocopiers with scan to PDF capability to reduce paper use; a company SMART car for staff who walk, bike, transit, or carpool to work; and upgrading the heating and cooling system to a high-efficiency system.
Staudt and Grittani shared that the Sustainability Team hopes their office-efforts will encourage a new sense of corporate responsibility among the staff.
“It’s brought a lot of awareness to the staff. We hope they bring these ideas home and make some changes there,” said Grittani.
