Business for the benefit of companies here and around the world

Business for the benefitof companies here andpeople around the world

Ontario firm teaches companies how to increase profits through wasting less

Bruce Taylor’s decision to

Bruce Taylor visits with Jogo Regina, a biofilter owner in Kajo Keji County, South Sudan. Helping Africans get clean water is a passion for Taylor

start his business came from realizing his regular job was getting in the way of volunteer work he felt led to do. Taylor is president of Enviro- Stewards, an award-winning consulting firm based in Elmira, ON.

He started the company in September 2000 with two motivations – the ability for him and other staff to be able to take time off to volunteer, and “to be able to focus on prevention instead of cures.”

After working for three other consulting firms, his faith led him to want to explore a new approach.

“Consulting engineers make their money by curing problems, we don’t make very much money by preventing them,” he said.

Engineers get large fees for cleaning up toxic waste sites, “but it’s much less expensive to design the system so you don’t lose the chemicals in the first place.”

That philosophy has garnered Enviro-Stewards, which has 16 staff, numerous awards. Earlier this year, it was the only Canadian firm to win the Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Award for partnerships in support of the United Nations’ SDGs. Each Enviro-Stewards team member gets 20 hours of paid time to volunteer annually, and as much

Bruce Taylor visits with Jogo Regina, a biofilter owner in Kajo Keji County, South Sudan. Helping Africans get clean water is a passion for Taylor.

unpaid time off for the same purpose as they want.

Projects have included participating in a Habitat for Humanity build day along with clients and suppliers, and accompanying Taylor on trips

to South Sudan or Uganda. Two of Enviro-Stewards’ clients, including an executive with the Tim Horton’s coffee chain, have been to Africa with him.

Taylor’s African avocation grew out of “reverse culture shock” that he

experienced after returning to Canada from an initial overseas volunteer stint. A later trip to South Sudan in 2004 to help build an orphanage resulted in him setting up a water filter there and set the stage for many other trips.

Asked to return to help teach people how to build bio-sand filters, he began annual African trips. Realizing that a charity model limits acceptance of technology, he used a business model to make his work self-sustaining. After teaching 17 students, he hired the three most promising to start a business installing filters for $100. Those efforts have resulted in 1,488 filters being set up as of the end of 2018, mostly in South Sudan and Uganda. Each of those should serve 10 people and last up to 25 years, he said.

“We’ve never received any money for this really. Some of our clients choose to get involved. Once you save them a whole bunch of money, some of them are willing to

A reluctant joiner

Bruce Taylor is so reluctant

to join industry associations that he almost didn’t join one that has regularly honored the firm that he heads.

When Taylor was speaking at a conference in 2011, a fellow speaker, Bob Willard of environmental firm Sustainability Advantage, suggested that Enviro-Stewards, Taylor’s firm, should apply to become a B Corp.

B Corps are companies that have received a private certification for meeting standards related to accountability, social and environmental sustainability and being transparent to the public.

The B-Corp website indicates that almost 2,800 firms in 64 countries, representing 150 different industries have receive B-Corp certification.

Taylor was reluctant to spend the $500 membership fee, arguing that he could build five sand

give some of it back.”

Taylor’s firm hosts an annual golf tournament to raise money for the water filter project.

In addition to his annual 10-day overseas trips, he spends a couple of hours per week supporting those efforts from his Elmira office or speaking at conferences, colleges and schools. He calls Conrad Grebel University College his favorite place to speak, as it involves “zero presentation,” with environmentally-conscious students peppering him with questions for an hour and a half.

Taylor has developed a game board to teach business principles and has used it in seminars both in Africa and Canada.

Enviro-Stewards is a Living Wage employer, committed to paying all workers at least $16.15 an hour, which is considered the lowest wage necessary for a person to be able to provide himself/herself with food, clothing

Elmira firm regularly honored by B Corp movement

dams in Africa and provide clean drinking water for 50 people for the same expense. Willard paid the $500 fee, his Enviro-Stewards consulting firm received a “sugar baby” award, and the sponsor got a “sugar daddy” trophy.

Once in the door, Taylor was convinced of the value of being part of the B-Corp community. Last year, he sponsored

and shelter in Waterloo Region.

“The only folks it affects is the cleaner, entry level, some co-op students, but there is something to be said for everybody knowing that everybody is treated fairly. You don’t want people working two or three jobs, and you don’t want them thinking about the other job while they are working on your job, and how they are going to make ends meet.” Raised in a mainline church, Taylor had no spiritual involvement during his post-secondary studies until his final year, when he began to wonder why we are on the planet, and what life is all about.

After a friend showed him a video about the resurrection of Christ, he began a two-year study of the Christian story and the meaning of life. “If you want to find out, you have to sort out who Jesus was.”

He came to accept the Biblical story as true but didn’t want the

Aqua Clara Kenya, a social enterprise that works to increase access to safe drinking water in Africa, for membership. Aqua Clara is now the first B Corp in Kenya, Taylor said.

Enviro-Stewards has ranked in the top 10 per cent of each category B Corps are ranked on for each of the past several years. “It’s a really inspiring community.”

That experience has not convinced him to join other business groups. When the Canadian Federation of Independent Business asked him to join, they told him one of their value propositions would be opposing increases to the minimum wage. His response: “I’m trying to promote a living wage, why would I pay you to advocate the opposite?” ◆

Bruce Taylor favors a business approach to providing safe water.

commitment of becoming a Christian. Eventually, he came to be convicted that his career was an idol and began to trust God, putting following God ahead of following his career. The turning point was when he felt God telling him to confess to taking some office supplies from his employer, something that he had done years earlier as a co-op student.

“That little thing was much harder than going to South Sudan during the civil war or taking a leave of absence for a year.”

One of his firm’s consulting jobs was for a BC winery that was using most of the town’s water capacity. Enviro-Stewards helped that firm reduce their water use by half and cut the amount of wine lost in the production process by two-thirds.

Pointing out that Jesus turned water into wine, Taylor has no difficulty justifying his work with wineries. He would draw the line at

Bruce Taylor favors a business approach to providing safe water.

hard liquor manufacturers or military firms and admits that he is having “a bit of heartburn about cannabis.”

One of its most prominent recurring

clients, Maple Leaf Foods, has engaged EnviroStewards to do utility audits of 35 of its plants to help them reach their goal of reducing their water, energy, greenhouse gas, and waste footprint by 50% by the year 2025.

That work has already resulted in $2 million in annual savings for Canada’s largest food processor.

Another project Enviro-Stewards is working on through a grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation is doing food loss and waste-prevention assessments at 50 food and beverage processors across Canada. The assessments completed by Enviro-Stewards under the program to date are averaging $350,000 annually of savings with a payback of nine months.

Asked about future business goals, Taylor’s thoughts turn naturally to his international efforts. He’d like Enviro- Stewards to be able to hire a volunteer and mentoring co-ordinator, focusing on international water work. ◆

Reaping rewards from greater environmental efficiency can be a challenge for the consultant

Helping companies reduce

waste and energy use is often more profitable for the client than it is for the consulting firm helping them achieve those savings, Bruce Taylor admits.

Taylor’s company, Enviro-Stewards, switched its business model 10 years ago to receive a service fee plus a payout equal to part of the savings it achieves for customers.

The average payback on most of its recommendations is less than one year.

That approach sounds easier in theory than it is in practice. “There’s no problem up front, but it’s afterwards when you try to collect the money (that challenges arise),” he said.

Working directly with owners has often been easier than corporations, he said. “By the time you are talking about getting paid, they

already have everything they need.” In one case, an Alberta client told Taylor that he wouldn’t honor a contract signed by his brother, who was no longer president of the firm Enviro-Stewards had helped. In another, a Campbell’s Soup facility won an award for its energy savings after implementing Enviro- Stewards’ recommendations, then closed the plant and moved the production to the US.

Enviro-Stewards has never taken legal action to recover what it is owed. “Most of the time we just negotiate something less. You’re not going to get a good referral by suing people,” he said.

Taylor has resolved the issue by charging more up front for Enviro- Stewards’ work and guaranteeing the annual savings. “It’s a good way to differentiate ourselves, since there is no other consultant that would do that.”

Engineering change is the company’s tagline. Engineering is the easy part, changing cultures is the difficult part, he said. “Really, ours is a trust-based business. You have to look at this guy and say — I trust him to make changes in our factory.” Many jobs come after people hear Taylor speak at a public event. “What we are selling, people have never bought before, really. So, they don’t really know it’s available to them.”

He is now looking further afield to make the business case for efficiency. The Government of Ontario has eliminated energy conservation incentives for businesses in the province, which had been Enviro-Stewards’ largest market.

In response, Enviro-Stewards is doing more jobs across Canada, and bidding on work in Mexico and the United States. ◆

13 The Marketplace July August 2019