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Your colleagues

Introduce One Day in your workplace and encourage your colleagues to be part of making Vancouver a cleaner, greener, healthier city. Post our 10 weeks of action reminders in the lunchroom or send them around the office by email. This is a small easy step that will help build a stronger connection between your organization and climate protection. Download this step by step guide.

Ideas to implement at the office

  • Have potluck lunches with your workmates that feature organic and locally-grown produce. Buying local means less transportation emissions associated with your meal. Request locally and organically grown foods for catered events as well
  • Use those travel mugs you got at your last corporate event
  • Stock your office kitchen with reusable cutlery, plates and mugs and when ordering catering, make sure you ask for reusable utensils
  • Buy GHG offsets or credits for any work related air travel. Air travel has significant impacts on the environment, releasing huge amounts of GHGs into the atmosphere. If you fly for work, purchase offsets - they cost $20-40 for an average flight. Visit www.offsetters.org, www.climatecare.org or ask your booking agent if offsets are available with your ticket purchase
  • Go green to a meeting. Take transit, cycle or walk. For medium distance trips, not taking the car may actually be faster, not to mention offering the greatest benefit of all - you're getting exercise
  • Switch to more sustainable corporate gifts and prizes. Items such as travel mugs, water bottles, reusable bags and refillable pens can be printed with your company's logo to send just the right message. Promoting a greener choice affects the recipient as much as your colleagues and anyone else whose uses your greener choice
  • Set up a few office carpools with employees who live close to each other
  • Make turn it off stickers for light switches in your office
  • Get your colleagues to sign up for the David Suzuki Foundation's Nature Challenge
  • Hold a lunchtime tire inflation workshop and let your colleagues know how important tire pressure is to their vehicle's operation and efficiency. The Rubber Association of Canada has a Be Tire Smart program online to get you started. If you need to borrow an air compressor for your event, ask us!

Engage your employees through BC Hydro's Employee Energy Awareness Program

The Employee Energy Awareness Program is designed to harness the enormous potential to save energy by involving employees in conservation. This program offers a variety of downloadable resources to help workplaces design and implement an employee awareness campaign - tailored to meet the varied needs of either the commercial/municipal customers or the industrial clients.

Sandra's colleagues

Sandra's colleagues

When Sandra discovered One Day, her first thought was that this was exactly what was needed at her workplace. She and her colleagues at Accommodation and Real Estate Services, Ministry of Labour and Citizen Services, developed their own version of the One Day website. And they've been busy ever since. Their group they've named the Green Champions, have tackled a number of recycling and waste re-use challenges in their building. They've made changes to green their work travel as well as having launched a month-long Carbon Hero Commuter Challenge. To encourage more employee involvement they've started sending out email energy tips each Monday and are hosting a summer bbq, complete with tire inflation clinics and a local food market in the parking lot.