Maximising Sustainability

“Making sure we behave in the right way and the commerciality of that is important,” says Managing Director Kevin Obern. He calls the feel- good factor of being socially responsible and the commercial benefit a double win, asking, “Why wouldn’t you do it?”

Traditionally an office products provider with roots in New Zealand tracing back to as early as 1871, OfficeMax has evolved into a provider of business needs. With paper products being a large part of the business, it became important to the company to do the right thing and be seen doing the right thing to lead change in sustainable behaviour in the business community.

Standards and certification

Eager to become an industry leader, OfficeMax worked with the Ministry for the Environment to decide what were the important criteria for indicating a product is eco-friendly as there are no single or universally accepted standards. They decided that paper materials needed to come from managed sources and having a credible chain of custody was important. They soon developed their EcoMax sustainable products catalogue to help customers make better choices. Products for this range were selected if they had either a minimum of 30% recycled content, were made from recyclable plastics or included at least one of the many environmental labels such as PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) and FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification.

Commitment to sustainability goes beyond selling eco-friendly products. OfficeMax has committed to running the company as sustainably as possible. They obtained Enviro-Mark NZ Gold certification in 2007 which was subsequently upgraded to Enviro-Mark NZ Diamond in 2009. In 2011 they gained ISO 14001 Environmental accreditation which they have maintained.

They developed their own unique Environmental Management System (EMS) designed to control documentation and help understand the impact operations and activities have on the environment. A Sustainability Report was produced for the 2015 -17 period, focusing on their people, communication, dealing with waste, freight efficiency, delivery of an ethical supply chain, and customer service. Their 2018 Sustainability Report is soon to be released.

Championing sustainability

“It’s a progressive journey, you don’t just go from zero to hero in one leap,” says Kevin. He believes it needs to be led from the top. They formalised a Health, Safety & Environment work programme in 2001 and appointed a Sustainability Manager, Julie Roberts. Each member of the executive leadership team approves strategic plans to enable their business to achieve its sustainability objectives and they also have approximately 40 champions driving the message through the business. Kevin is passionate about sustainability which he says helps as the business leader, though he cautions that you have to keep momentum.

“I think it’s fair to say, in the middle somewhere we lost our way a bit.” Kevin explains that they launched a lot of initiatives and then slowed down as they focused on embedding it into the culture of the company. He likens it to rolling a heavy ball up a hill, if you slow for a moment it’s hard to get going again.

Changing the company culture

They started small with initiatives such as ‘Hit it Off’ whereby staff switch off their computers, photocopiers and other electronics before going home at night. They monitored electricity usage and added motion sensors to control lights.

Julie explains the importance of understanding people’s value sets and how the company can align with them while instilling sustainability into the culture. Staff were included in developing the initiatives and given a sense of empowerment. They didn’t just turn their lights off but requested to trial other ideas to reduce electricity consumption.

“The aim is to have it culturally as just the way we do stuff, this is the way we think now. You can talk to anyone at any level of the business and they will understand what to do. People know their part in the journey and how they can help us be better,” says Kevin. “I’d like to think how we feed this culture changes, how our people behave at home. We don’t see sustainability as just a work behaviour, we see it as a life behaviour.”

Julie admits there were challenges and that it was important to explain to staff why they wanted to do it and why it was important to them. She refers to the process of removing rubbish bins from desks to encourage people to find the right pathway for their waste. They set a 21-day challenge and had a formal complaint process to track sentiment. Instead of complaints, they received feedback on repositioning recycling bins and better explaining which bins take what materials. “People were getting more invested, they are part of it, and they get it.”

Fuel efficiency

One major initiative was their fuel programme which took three years to get right. A painful journey, but one they learned from and share with their clients. With 150 mobile staff, fuel efficiency became important for reducing both cost and greenhouse gases. OfficeMax included these two factors when preparing tender documentation for new fleet vehicles which are also fitted with low friction Ecopia tyres to further extend their sustainable efficiency.

All vehicles are fitted with GPS for both safety and efficiency reasons. This means driving behaviour can be tracked by their designated team and if, for example, drivers regularly take corners too fast or brake suddenly it can be evidenced. Julie explains, “We talked really openly with everybody about why we were tracking vehicles and I think that has been one of the successes of all of our programmes that we have been implementing – it’s been really clear what the purpose is.” The staff were shown the reporting generated by the programme so they could understand what information was being tracked and that there were no privacy issues.

OfficeMax monitors fuel consumption, setting an annual goal and measuring themselves against it. The next step is to change to electrical vehicles where possible. They have already commenced this with a select group who travel short distances locally and are able to charge the cars at the company premises overnight.

“Let’s not be shy, sustainability does have a public face,” admits Kevin. He calls the EVs a great investment – although at a greater cost than petrol or diesel vehicles – as they are branded and their visibility around town has been applauded by the public. He also assigns responsibility to industry to lead the way as business can better absorb the cost of making progress with EVs saying, “this is the journey we need to be on, let’s demonstrate what we are doing.”

Minimising waste

Managing waste streams is important and OfficeMax recycles more than 269 tons of cardboard each year. The team does weekly audits to make sure the correct pathways are being used for waste and whatever can be reused, is. There are ongoing projects to find ways of reducing the waste stream further or reusing materials. They also work with suppliers and customers to help them manage the waste that gets passed onto them through the supply chain.

Employer of choice

A further unexpected benefit from the sustainability efforts has been in recruitment. Kevin explains when a company has an ecofriendly brand and a positive reputation like OfficeMax, quality applicants surface, who in turn help drive the focus on the values of the business. He says when you are in the right space, people will come to you. “We’ve travelled a long way on our sustainability journey now but you can never say you’ve fully got there.”

� officemax.co.nz

Photo: Julie Roberts and Kevin Obern