SDG2: GIVING BACK I SDG4: TREES FOR SCHOOLS I SDG6: EDUCATOR THANK YOU PROGRAM

Giving Strategy

Giving back to our community, both locally and globally, is extremely important to us as a company. We aim to donate a minimum of 1% of our sales annually to social and environmental causes. In 2022, we donated $270,084 to charities in three main categories: Environmental Education, Community, and Environmental Conservation. This total also includes our annual Trees for Schools Program whereby we donate seedlings and wildflower seed packs to Ontario elementary schools in celebration of Earth Day.

Educator Thank You Program

We started our Educator Thank You program because we know that educators give their all to their students. We constantly hear stories of teachers going above and beyond to help their students thrive.

• 264 Copernicus products donated

• 32 supplies donated

• 1 DonorsChoose project supported

Copernicans are given up to 20 hours of paid volunteering hours per year. We set a goal of 200 hours and we well exceeded that goal! As a team, we volunteered a total of 457 hours in 2022! 40 out of our 49 full-time employees donated their time to local causes this year including Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Green Goderich, Mount Forest Christmas Bureau, Adopt-A-Road, Wyndham House, The Seed, snow removal for seniors and many others.

457 hours of employee volunteering (82% of employees)

Attila Mosonyi, our Network Administrator, recently received an award recognizing his 20 years of volunteer service. Attila is very active in the Table Tennis community and enjoys teaching young people the game.

Green Team

Our Green Team was on a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic and reconvened towards the end of 2021. 2022 was their first full year back as a team. Here's what they've been up to.

They have:

• Added more houseplants to our office space to improve air quality.

• Increased the percentage of employees who volunteer across the company.

• Installed a rain barrel for water conservation and reuse.

• Grew a vegetable garden on our property to provide free produce to employees.

• Created a Lending Library amongst employees to reduce personal consumption.

• Created monthly environmental challenges for employees and published a quarterly company newsletter to share green tips and ideas.

• Watched documentaries as a team to educate themselves on environmental issues.

B Corporation – Using business as a force for good

Certified B Corps are companies verified by the non-profit B Lab® to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. Copernicus has been a B Corp since 2018. We were recertified last year, increasing our score by 2 points to 82.5 from our initial certification score of 80.5.

We are up for recertification in 2024 and have already set goals for ourselves to increase this score once again. The assessment is being redesigned and likely to be more difficult— we’re looking forward to the challenge! We will continue to get better at striking a balance between profitability and the well-being of our employees, environment, community, customers, and partners.