Douglas magazine Dec/Jan 2021 2022

6 TRIED, TESTED AND TRUE STEPS TO GOING GREEN

DEC 2021/JAN 2022

BUILDING TRUST WITH

THE MALAHAT NATION ANGELA VAN DEN HOUT ON PARTNERSHIPS FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH

THE RISK FACTOR

HOW INSURANCE IS TACKLING NATURAL DISASTERS, CYBERCRIME AND COVID

M A N Y H A ND S MAKE LIGHT WORK

GREEN BUSINESS ISSUE

TRANSPARENCY RULES

CHARITIES BENEFIT FROM COLLABORATION WITH BUSINESSES

ecologyst is closing the loop in clothing production

René Gauthier, CEO, ecologyst

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DEC 2021/JAN 2022

CONTENTS FEATURES 14 Curb Appeal

One couple’s pandemic pivot shines a light on the business of food trucks.

36

BY DAVID LENNAM

17

17 Building Trust

Angela van den Hout, the Malahat Nation’s director of economic development, shares her insight into developing genuine relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous businesses. BY CARLA SORRELL

24 Tried, Tested and True

Six steps that Vancouver Island companies have implemented to reduce their carbon footprint and become green businesses. BY ALDYN CHWELOS

26 Transparency Rules

Creating a truly sustainable clothing brand is a disruptive pursuit.

Ecologyst is bravely challenging the status quo to offer ethically made clothing that stands the test of time. BY CARLA SORRELL

36 Many Hands Make Light Work

The right charitable programs help businesses lend their time, resources and skills to increase the scale of a project's impact. BY ALEX VAN TOL

42 The Risk Factor

Insurance companies are taking a hit as severe weather events have accounted for eight of the 10 highest financial loss years in history.

BY SHANNON MONEO

26

DEPARTMENTS 6 FROM THE EDITOR 9 IN THE KNOW Local company wins Ecostar Award and is at COP26, electric fleets abound, Pani Energy scales up, unlocking the potential of podcasting, ocean cleanup and award-winning street design.

54 POINT OF VIEW

Daisy Orser, cofounder of The Root Cellar, talks about why it takes two.

INTEL (BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE) 48 ENTREPRENEUR

Office Interrupted. BY JIM HAYHURST

50 HUMAN RESOURCES

Self-managed organizations. BY SHYLA WARNER

52 SUSTANABILITY

Decarbonization strategies. BY JILL DOUCETTE 4 DOUGLAS

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

A Cause for Hope

Enriched Thinking™ for your family, business and future.

To find out how a comprehensive wealth strategy can help you reach your financial goals, contact me.

C.P. (Chuck) McNaughton, PFP Senior Wealth Advisor 250.654.3342 charles.mcnaughton@scotiawealth.com

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Scotia Capital Inc. is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. For more information visit www.scotiawealthmanagement.com.

McNaughton Group is a personal trade name of C.P. (Chuck) McNaughton.

6 DOUGLAS

A YEAR INTO DISCUSSIONS OF “THE NEW NORMAL” and the conversation about the evolution of work has become far more profound than a matter of where our desks are, accounting for a spectrum that ranges from climate change to happiness. The introspective nature of this line of thought has raised deep questions of how and why we work.

The future of business is unresolved, but the possibilities are endless. How far we can go, what changes we are capable of making, depends on the scope of questions we ask ourselves and our businesses, and on how far we are willing to deviate from the familiar path.

The questions, arguably, are more important than the answers.

On the way we work, Indra Nooyi, the former CEO of Pepsi, says in a podcast interview that “we are in the most tricky part of that discussion right now.”

It’s not just a question of hybridization. Nooyi says that discussions around the future of work The future of business misleadingly focus on disruptions from robotics and is unresolved, but technology instead of talking about women, young family builders and the people who are central to a the possibilities are more inclusive and robust future workforce. endless. How far we We need to assess our blind spots and re-examine can go, what changes the metrics.

At Accent Inns, president and CEO Mandy Farmer we are capable of and her team have established a single KPI that making, depends on outweighs all other KPIs — employee happiness. the scope of questions When employees are happy, so are customers, who will reflect that in reviews and recommendations we ask ourselves and which translate into sales (and staff retention). The our businesses, and pandemic has made it clear that values alignment is on how far we are a leading consideration for many in reflection of why willing to deviate from they work.

With climate change a more pressing concern the familiar path. than ever, this issue showcases many companies who are not looking for hope but who are creating it.

Focusing on carbon neutrality, their business models and innovative approaches are scalable examples with potential for global impact.

At COP26, world leaders assembled to agree on global emission targets by 2030, but many left disappointed by the slow pace and the limited scale of diplomatic negotiations.

UVic's Gustavson School’s newly appointed executive in residence David Miller was there and is optimistic about how business can provide solutions to environmental challenges.

“We can't succeed in doing what we need to do to address climate change without the business sector being aligned,” says Miller in a recent interview (douglasmagazine.com).

Businesses, in contrast to governments, are poised to act quickly and collaboratively.

They are in a position to respond to big global questions, while simultaneously asking their own game-changing questions.

— Carla Sorrell

CONGRATULATIONS TO THIS YEAR’S WINNERS!

30

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During harvest, kelp lines are pulled out of the water with a hydraulic drum before being washed, inspected, cut off the line and stored in icelined totes. The eight day harvest aligned with the Spring Equinox in May 2021 — when water temperatures increase and Bryozoans appear.

CRAZY FOR KELP

In one short week, Cascadia Seaweed took home the Ecostar Award for Innovation in Victoria and its CEO spoke at the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

BY CARLA SORRELL

CASCADE SEAWEED

[IN THE KNOW]

Cascadia Seaweed’s production of line-grown kelp has increased by 900 per cent in only a few short years since its 2019 start, with the company expanding from two to 25 employees — and counting. Cultivating kelp for food, agriculture and regenerative industrial products addresses the growing potential of seaweed to generate $1 billion to the GDP of B.C. while creating tens of thousands of jobs.

The company is currently harvesting in the waters of four Vancouver Island First Nations: Uchucklesaht, Huu-ay-aht, Ahousaht and Klahoose. Their agile approach to working with individual Indigenous communities has resulted in tailored agreements that range from simply leasing the tenure or water lot to working the kelp farms. The success of these partnerships has increased interest from other Nations.

“There’s a tidal wave of momentum behind this whole global sector,” says Erin Bremner-Mitchell, the company’s manager of communications and engagement. “And we are pioneers of the industry on the West Coast.”

Currently working towards B Corp certification, Cascadia Seaweed’s regenerative cultivation provides essential habitat for marine life and sequesters carbon.

It’s the sheer potential of the sector, to cool down the Earth’s atmosphere while contributing to the growth of a revolutionary $15-billion industry, that has put the company in the spotlight.

Cascadia Seaweed accepted the Ecostar Innovation Award “on behalf of the whole sector — to demonstrate that this sector deserves investment in innovation all across the value chain, from seed development to farm installation to harvesting technologies, specifically processing technologies,” says Bremner-Mitchell.

Recognition for their innovation and leadership in the sector is growing globally, which will inevitably help the company achieve its goal to be the largest ocean cultivator in North America. Founding partner and the CEO of Cascadia Seaweed Mike Williamson spoke at the United Nations global climate summit, COP26, as one of only two global organizations presenting the opportunities of seaweed in the fight against climate change.

“It’s a way of thinking; really, it’s a paradigm shift in how we behave,” says Bremner-Mitchell of the regenerative approach. “If we are always thinking about giving back more than we give, I think we’ll see a real shift.”

To find out more about all of the inspirational Ecostar Award winners, visit douglasmagazine.com DOUGLAS 9

GOING ELECTRIC Large vehicle fleets amplify the impact of carbon reduction as they transition to electric.

BY ANDREW FINDLAY

O

n Vancouver Island, innovative companies in tourism, industry and public transportation are making the switch to electric. British Columbia is already leading the country in electric vehicle sales, with more than 54,000 light duty EVs and hybrids on the road. In 2020, 9.4 per cent of the province’s new car sales were electric models.

Last August, BCAA launched its car share operation Evo in Victoria with a 100 per cent hybrid fleet composed of 80 Toyota Prius vehicles.

Sara Holland, BCAA’s senior manager of communications and advocacy, says Victorians are already making 200 trips daily in Evo hybrids.

“Our members are definitely environmentally conscious,” says Holland. “Many choose Evo over private car ownership or a second car because accessing a shared fleet is proven to take cars off the road.”

According to Holland, each Evo car takes nine personal vehicles out of traffic circulation.

Full electrification is on BCAA’s radar; however, the

The Tesla semi will have a battery pack around 500 kWh with a range of 300 kilometres. One semi offers over $200,000 in fuel savings and a two-year payback period.

company is still examining some of the logistical challenges, such as the higher cost of EVs, keeping them charged, battery range and ensuring members know how to use them.

Mosaic Forest Management Inc., which manages private forestland for TimberWest and Island Timberlands on Vancouver Island, is planning to test out several fully electric Tesla logging trucks. It’s a partnership with the Parksville company EcoWest Driven, that is aiming to help the freight transportation sector convert to fully electric semi trucks.

“There’s no delivery date yet from Tesla but we’re excited about it,” says Domenico Iannidinardo, Mosaic’s chief forester and vice president of forest and logistics, adding that electrifying log hauling is part of the company’s plan to reach

carbon neutrality by 2035.

In Victoria, Alset Tours, which specializes in food and wine tours on the South Island, continues to grow since launching in 2015. Founder Kevin Belanger is hiring professional drivers for his fleet of Teslas, which includes the SUV models S, 3 and X. He refers to his tours as “solar powered.”

Between 2015 and 2020, the company’s 18-panel solar power array generated 26 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to drive more than 100,000 kilometres and offset 10 tonnes of CO2.

Electrification is also changing the two-wheeled pedal bike world in a big way.

Last July, Gordy Taylor Jr., a member of the Ucluelet First Nation, opened up the family business Tiickin (which means thunderbird in Nuu-chah-nulth)

Ebike Rentals at the TofinoUcluelet junction. Taylor Jr. started with a fleet of 35 electric bikes, and he says he wants to grow it into a full-service bike shop that offers retail sales, service and tours.

Innovation is the hallmark of Parksville-based Canadian Electric Vehicles. Since 1995, the company has been manufacturing light duty work trucks for municipalities, college campuses, airports and other institutional customers.

Last March, CleanBC Advanced Research and Commercialization, part of a provincial program to support the development of companies operating in the zero-emission vehicle sector, awarded the company a $294,000 grant to develop a street and highwayready version of its Might-E Truck.

ELECTRIC EXPANSION

Victoria Fire Department

BC Ferries

Geazone Eco-Courier

Five new Chevy Bolt electric EVs were added to the Victoria Fire Department fleet. The 'FireBolts' will replace three gas-powered pickup trucks and two SUVs used to conduct safety inspections and deliver educational presentations. With this addition, the city now has an electric fleet consisting of 16 EVs and five e-bikes.

The sixth vessel in a new fleet of hybrid dieselelectric powered Island Class ferries has set sail toward B.C. from a Romanian shipyard. Two of the six ferries are already in operation with the additional four set for 2022 sailings. The additions will travel on Campbell River—Quadra Island and Nanaimo Harbour—Gabriola Island routes.

Victoria-based zero-emission courier, Geazone, is building a fleet of hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV). These 40 Toyota Mirai FCEVs will be the first hydrogen-powered courier fleet in North America. The company also makes use of human-powered tricycles and will be adding fully electric five-tonne trucks to their lineup in 2022.

10 DOUGLAS

MIC’D UP

Water Works

THE BEST WAY TO FIND OUT WHICH MIC IS BEST FOR YOU IS TO FIND A LOCAL SOURCE AND TEST OPTIONS. UNLESS YOU ARE IN A SOUNDPROOF ROOM, YOU WANT A DYNAMIC MIC WITH AN XLR AND USB CONNECTION.

Investors recognize the global potential of Pani’s software to improve water and energy efficiency in water treatment plants.

In October, Pani Energy completed an oversubscribed funding round of $8-million that will see the company extend its reach to thousands of water treatment plants.

Industrial water efficiency has been called an invisible solution to the climate emergency. Pani uses cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize desalination in water and waste water treatment plants worldwide, reducing operating expenses, reducing downtime, decreasing energy requirements and reducing overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the entire industry.

“We’ve had an incredible year, and we’ve been able to demonstrate to several players in the global water treatment market that our solution can easily realize production improvement and efficiency gains in this industry,” said CEO Devesh Bharadwaj.

The company’s current platform operates on a multi-tiered subscription model applicable to water treatment facilities at all levels of digital maturity. The funding will help Pani to globally scale its direct sales reach as well as help attract distribution partners in the water industry.

Funds include a seed equity round co-led

by Blue Bear Capital and Blue Coast Partners, along with participation from Mazarine Ventures and Humanitas Smart Planet Fund, as well as contributions from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and other government agencies.

Blue Bear Capital, a California firm that invests in high-growth AI technology companies across energy, infrastructure and climate industries, also joins Pani’s board as part of the financing.

“Water treatment is a multi-trillion dollar industry and one of the most important drivers of sustainable development; yet it has been slow to see effective AI solutions,” says Ernst Sack, partner at Blue Bear Capital.

SAMSON Q2U For under $100 this mic comes in a podcasting pack with all the equipment you need to get set up.

SHURE MV7 This is the podcasting version of Shure’s popular broadcasting mic, the SM7B, at a fraction of the price — around $300.

SHURE SM58 This is a hardworking vocal mic traditionally seen on stages, retailing around $150.

THE BENEFITS OF PODCASTING PODCASTING HAS THE POTENTIAL TO HELP COMPANIES BUILD A COMMUNITY OF LISTENERS AND CREATE ONGOING ENGAGEMENT.

Podcasting is an intimate and increasingly popular experience. A recent article in Fast Company said that we are in the midst of an audio renaissance; 67 million people (U.S.) listen to podcasts every month, and audio streaming has increased 32 per cent year over year. The pandemic gave rise to numerous audio-only social networking apps like Clubhouse.

“It was the medium that connected all of us when we had to be apart,” says Mary Chan, founder of Organized Sound Productions. Chan thinks businesses can capitalize on the opportunity of podcasts “to create that human connection to a brand.”

“You get to showcase who you truly are without the fuss of video or being distracted or focusing on ‘being live’ on social media,” says Chan. “There are no misconceptions about what you mean and having to find the 'right words' to write a blog or social media caption.”

Creating a podcast is an investment and will take a year to see results, such as how it translates into sales, increased visibility and revenue.

“Have six-months to a year’s worth of content before you can start,” says Chan. “In some cases, you’ll need a team to help bring it to life. Not only the hosting, recording and editing, but also research, scheduling, writing, show notes, promotion, graphic design, etc.”



MADE-ON-VANCOUVER-ISLAND PODCASTS Island Thrive — By featuring conversations with local leaders on their thoughts, ideas and emotions surrounding the pandemic, Smart Dolphins showcases their brand and commitment to local businesses.

The Military Lifestyle — Connecting members of the Esquimalt Military Family Resource Centre (MFRC) who are deployed all over the world, this very niche podcast created shareable resources for their members.

Circle of Change — This is a good representation of a solopreneur boosting her visibility and brand. Ame-Lia uses her podcast to explore what it's like to work with her, but also interviews other changemakers to bring a worldly perspective and provide value.

DOUGLAS 11

Disciplined Value Investing That Works COMPOUND ANNUAL RETURNS (Including reinvested dividends, as of October 15, 2021) 1 YEAR

3 YEAR

5 YEAR

10 YEAR

20 YEAR

INCEPTION1

Odlum Brown Model Portfolio

27.8%

14.7%

11.9%

14.3%

11.9%

14.6%

S&P/TSX Total Return Index

30.4%

14.2%

10.8%

8.9%

8.5%

8.9%

*

December 15, 1994. *The Odlum Brown Model Portfolio is an all-equity portfolio that was established by the Odlum Brown Equity Research Department on December 15, 1994 with a hypothetical investment of $250,000. It showcases how we believe individual security recommendations may be used within the context of a client portfolio. The Model also provides a basis with which to measure the quality of our advice and the effectiveness of our disciplined investment strategy. Trades are made using the closing price on the day a change is announced. Performance figures do not include any allowance for fees. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.

1

Whether your goal is retiring comfortably, maximizing your legacy, or spending more time on the golf course or boating (like me), planning and executing the right investment strategy to achieve your goals is fundamental, and part of my role in supporting you and your family.

If you would like to discuss your investment strategy and whether it aligns with your life goals, please contact me today.

R. H. Mark Mawhinney, CPA, CMA, ICD.D, CIM® Associate Portfolio Manager, Investment Advisor

Tel 250-952-7755

mmawhinney@odlumbrown.com Member-Canadian Investor Protection Fund Odlum Brown Limited

12 DOUGLAS

@Odlum_Brown

Odlum Brown Community

OdlumBrown

Street SMARTS

NANAIMO CREATES AWARD-WINNING STANDARDS FOR NEW CITY STREETS, CENTRED ON SAFETY AND MULTIMODAL TRANSPORT. A makeover to Nanaimo’s street design is winning awards for the way people are interacting with one of its thoroughfares.

The Complete Streets project has developed new engineering standards for the city’s streets, which will increase safety, accessibility and sustainability. They include protected bike lanes, wider sidewalks and continuous raised intersections, designed to reduce collisions.

The first implementation of the designs resulted in the updating of a 3 kilometre section of the Metral Drive corridor.

As part of the Complete Streets project, not only are sidewalks separated from roads but cyclists are separated from pedestrians.

As well, the new streets deploy raised local intersections, which means instead of pedestrians stepping down into the roadway, the crosswalk remains at a continuous height thereby increasing accessibility and safety.

With phase one complete, the Metral Drive corridor is beginning to see changes and, like any evolution, it will take adjustment. Some drivers have said the new roads feel narrow, despite only a slight decrease in width. As cities shift to prioritizing multimodal transport and decentralizing cars, there will be a transition period where the new feels strange and unnatural.

“The wider the road and more open the landscape, drivers are more likely to be distracted or drive faster than they should,” says project engineer Annalisa Fipke. “When roads are narrower with curbs, right-sized lanes and street trees, drivers intuitively feel constrained and drive slower.”

While drivers might need time to adjust, the benefit to other road users is obvious.

“Parents voiced that they would never have let their kids walk or bike to school via Metral Drive,” says Fipke. “Now I see kids biking to school, toddlers out on strider bikes. You can see the community coming alive.”

BLUE SEA THINKING The Ocean Cleanup enters the marine plastic game with large-scale, high-tech solutions.

BY ALDYN CHWELOS

T

he Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch nonprofit operating out of Ogden Point, returned to Victoria in October with nearly 29,000 kilos of marine debris after a 12-week voyage to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to test the viability of their latest innovation. System 002, nicknamed "Jenny" after Forrest Gump’s shrimp boat, collects trash in an 800-metre long horseshoe-shaped floating barrier that’s pulled behind two vessels. It corrals the garbage into a net, which is then hauled aboard to be recycled into new products, such as sunglasses.

“Hopefully soon, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will be the thing you can point to, not as an example of things that are wrong with the world, but as an example that we can solve the big problems that we’re facing today,” said Boyan Slat, founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, at the vessels return to Ogden Point. The Ocean Cleanup’s mission is to remove 90 per cent of the Great

Pacific Garbage Patch plastic by 2040.

After their return, the vessels quickly set sail once again to continue collecting debris, moving out of the testing phase and into operation. Simultaneously, the company is developing System 003, expected to be three times larger with refined specifications.

Despite the enormity of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it represents only a small portion of the plastic in the ocean. The grand majority is suspended below the surface, sunk to the seafloor, or in the form of microplastics too small to gather. For this reason, many researchers say cleaning the ocean is a losing battle and the effort would be better spent preventing plastic from ever entering the sea or from being deposited on beaches, which are easier to access.

The Ocean Cleanup has diversified their cleanup strategies. Most plastic enters oceans through freshwater sources so they’ve placed interceptors at the mouths of rivers to snatch plastic before it escapes into

the open sea. Currently, The Ocean Cleanup has four interceptors in operation with the goal of 10 by the end of the year.

“We always had the plan to do both sides of the equation,” said Slat. “Prevent, collect and intercept plastic.”

Island-based organizations have been contributing their own solutions to marine debris. The Clean Coast Clean Waters Initiative Fund (CCCW) provides funding to businesses and non-profits alike to operate their own coastal cleanup initiatives.

The projects are collaborations between business, local communities and First Nations and in 2021 resulted in the removal of 425,000 kilos of garbage. The CCCW is funding three new organizations for 2022: Misty Isles Economic Development Society, Spirit of the West Adventures and the Campbell River Association of Tour Operators. Together, these projects will clear an additional 1,000 kilometres of coastline and provide 240 jobs.

DOUGLAS READS Someday, whether we make the choice or not, climate change will force a significant re-evaluation and reduction of our current rate of consumption. What then will happen to businesses? In THE DAY THE WORLD STOPS SHOPPING, Vancouver journalist J.B. MacKinnon explores what would happen to our planet, our lives and our economy if consumption decreased by 25 per cent overnight. This well-researched thought experiment examines society’s relationship with materialism but also provides insight into how businesses might operate in a sustainable future.

MacKinnon wonders what businesses could look like if our goals shifted away from profit-driven expansion. His research covers lots of ground, looking back at the longstanding generational family businesses in Japan and reaching forward to examine companies disrupting the fashion industry.

“We’ve come to assume that, because we live in a global economy that produces a lot of both growth and innovation, we can’t have one without the other,” writes MacKinnon.

His book is a treatise on how wrong that assumption is. The loss of consumption could lead us to innovate more and innovate better.

DOUGLAS 13

CURB APPEAL One couple’s pandemic pivot shines a light on the business of food trucks.

T

wo appetites, 16 months, 43 food trucks, 70 Facebook photos, $1,200 spent.

A helluva tasty way to weather the pandemic.

As gigs disappeared, restaurants shuttered and no one really wanted to sit with a group of strangers indoors anyway, Victoria couple, Jeff Poynter and Eden Oliver (two-thirds of the folk band West My Friend, with Alex Rempel) ventured out to sample the fare of meals on wheels. When their mission was complete, they had visited all of the food trucks in Victoria, filled up two notebooks with their ratings and become the go-to authorities on the rolling cuisine scene through copious Facebook posts.

What surprised our four-wheeled foodies most was the sheer number of food trucks they visited.

“Going in, we thought 10 or 15, but 43 is a lot,” says Oliver.

Island Health has permitted 168 mobile food premises throughout Greater Victoria and 365 on the Island. The City of Victoria has averaged 58 business licences for mobile vending over the past five years. And all figures include not only the ubiquitous food trucks but food carts and catering-only businesses.

Victoria’s numbers have more than doubled since 2013. In 2009, by comparison, there were only eight.

“We wanted to support local businesses and eat tasty things,” explains Poynter. “I don’t know if we decided right away we’d do all of them or if we went to one and then we were like, we should go to all of these.”

“We did bring the notebook with us right away,” interjects Oliver, “so I think we knew this was a project.”

The pair kept meticulous records of their regular Friday lunches with a template to evaluate each of the food trucks, based on the metrics of presentation, taste, vibe, price (generally $30 for two) and a catch-all “other” that included things like seating, portion size and quality of utensils.

Throughout their pandemic odyssey, the couple recognized how busy most of the tuck trucks were, especially in popular areas like

14 DOUGLAS

Cook Street Village or at Cook and Pandora.

Oliver recalls speaking with the owner of Molly’s Fish and Chips at Esquimalt Lagoon during “deep COVID” under rainy skies.

“They told us not everybody was doing great, but they were doing pretty okay because they were really consistent,” says Oliver. “For years, they’d been at the same spot every day, so locals in the neighbourhood would come.”

Ian Tostenson, president and CEO of the British Columbia Restaurant and Food Services Association calls food truck owners a diverse and independent group that survives without the sort of industry association brick-and-mortar restaurants have.

“It’s a labour-intensive, low-yield business — a labour of love,” he says, noting many of the operators have had a lean pandemic and that not all have survived.

Tostenson estimates food trucks might do $150,000 annually in sales, “but by the time you pay for everything, there’s not a lot left over.”

Overall, Oliver and Poynter thought that the cuisine was varied and mostly satisfying with the exception that “some food trucks use Cheez Whiz in not a good way,” says OIiver.

Less so was finding where specific food trucks were parked. A web listing, streetfoodapp.com, tries to collect the whereabouts of your next meal on wheels.

“The app lists a lot of them, but not all of them go on there because you [need to] have registered, and it’s always the same ones,” says Poynter, noting there was plenty of searching — phone calls, emails, digging through Facebook and Instagram posts to find where certain trucks were located that day.

Of course, food trucks serve the people, not the scenery.

Too often Oliver and Poynter were left munching their meal in several acres of asphalt surrounding big box stores full of hungry shoppers and workers.

Looking back on all those trucks, dozens of tacos, a hundred selfies tucking into lunch, Oliver offers a bit of a reality check for all their research.

“I don’t know how many times we ended up sitting in a parking lot in Langford.”

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

BY DAVID LENNAM

HOW FOOD TRUCKS FARED “[Our business] packed up for a long time at the start of COVID. We lost some staff and customers vanished for a while, so we focused on delivery, frozen food, care packages and just rode it out. Last summer, the markets and sporting events came back, so the truck was out again, and we’re hoping next summer will be even better.”

— Nick Crooks, Saltchuck Pie Company

JEFF & EDEN’S Top 6 Victoria Food Trucks  SALTCHUCK PIE COMPANY “Zucchini and Ricotta Pies were warm, creamy. Pastry is divine. Zucchini flavour was good and not too zucchini-y.”  MORNING PEOPLE “Potatoes quite yummy, liked cheese on bottom, liked aioli … Eden’s tongue salivated over crunchy bits.”  ROGUEFOODTRUCK “Poutine really yummy, mushroom gravy really flavourful, green onions good on it and cheddar cheese good, too, even though not curds.”  LOS PANAS KITCHEN “100% the friendliest person yet & he gave us a thorough and interesting explanation of the foods … their music was also very good and adds to the experience.”  AL-RAHMAN SAMOSA KING "They don’t have a location yet, so they are cooking in the truck and delivering … even on Christmas, which is cool.”  BIRD & BASKET AT ROCK BAY MARKET “Is this the most hipster of all? Are hipsters still a thing? Regardless, it was delicious.”

THROUGH THE PANDEMIC “I had to pivot. I had always wanted to have a place of my own where my customers could come for their kombucha [Susut owns Cultured Kombucha]. I also had a desire to delve deeper into food production. So while trying to make production easier, we started another business instead ... oops.”

— Christine Susut, Bird & Basket at Rock Bay Market

“We had just lined up all the festivals, had the soccer [Pacific FC] at Langford and [when the pandemic hit] just watched that domino every job we had worked toward. So I just pivoted. Initially, the idea was to go to music festivals and markets and everything food trucks go to, but being made to stay [in Cook Street Village] has been a blessing."

— Jonathan Ballantine, Morning People

“We bought this truck during the pandemic. We rented the kitchen at the Fairfield community centre for five years, but the pandemic closed that. We’d always wanted a truck and the pandemic was good timing. It let us learn our way around the truck. So it was a bit of an advantage having things a bit slower.”

— Perveen Kahn, Al-Rahman Samosa King DOUGLAS 15

IN CONVERSATION ANGELA VAN DEN HOUT, DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, MALAHAT NATION

BUILDING TRUST

BY CARLA SORRELL | PHOTOS BY JEFFREY BOSDET

The Malahat Nation’s vision for its future includes economic growth, respect for lands and opportunity for the Malahat people.

Angela van den Hout shares her insight into developing genuine relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous businesses.

B

ridging the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups, and how they do business, has been the evolving focus of Angela van den Hout’s career. Her own identity and career experience, sitting on both sides of the table, is evident in the insight she brings to negotiating.

“I use ‘we’ interchangeably between referring to myself as white and Indigenous,” says van den Hout who is Italian, Cree, Canadian, and by marriage, a touch of Dutch. “My niche is being in the middle and being able to liaise.”

A formative experience in her early career saw van den Hout convince her then employer, a mining company, to rent a truck and drive to northern B.C. to facilitate a conversation when written correspondence hadn’t received a response.

“I met with each chief by just showing up and going to the office. Every one of them was completely welcoming, just saying we just want to be part of this process. They didn’t care that the government sent a letter saying, this is what’s happening in your territory.

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In fact, that’s really offensive. That’s not engagement.”

Now only a few months into her new role as director of economic development at the Malahat Nation, van den Hout inherited the high-profile debut of the hugely popular Malahat Skywalk. The partnership, she says, is an example of what success looks like for Indigenous economic development — a multi-tiered project whose long-term impact will include improved well-being and access to resources for the Nation.

The Malahat has long been a pass-through on trips up and down the Island. While the SkyWalk is a taste of the change to come, the Nation’s ambitious vision will make it a destination.

The Nation’s overall strategy is to develop and diversify the local economy so visitors could come to just the Malahat region over a number of days, and be able to sample a number of unique tourism offerings.

“The same plan would allow individuals and families to relocate to the region and never have to leave the community,” says van den Hout. “However, being so close to Victoria would have quick access to the urban lifestyle next door.”

Angela van den Hout in front of the longhouse at the Malahat Nation in Mill Bay. Led by Chief George Harry, the Me’ le’ xelh Mustimuhw (Malahat Nation) is a member government of the Naut’sa mawt Tribal Council, and their ancestor tongue is the Hul'qumi'num language. They reside on their traditional lands near Mill Bay, Goldstream and the Highlands and recently signed an Incremental Treaty Agreement transferring the Shawnigan Lands back to their people.

DOUGLAS 17

What are some of the takeaways from the Malahat SkyWalk partnership?

This is unfortunate, but people come to the Malahat Nation and speak at them. They’ll say, “We’ve been thinking about it in our boardroom, and what we think is going to be great is this,” rather than coming and saying, “We were thinking this; what are your thoughts?”

What I see here is a complete shift from that.

It’s: we have this idea, and we think this might be a good spot for it. What do you think? We haven’t had to guide them. On the contrary, they’re guiding us toward how to make this happen. The timber is from one of the partners

“Yes, you can have a business on your own as either non-Indigenous or Indigenous. But if it’s about reconciliation, growth and economic success, the only way to get there is to work together.”

of the Malahat Nation, and you’ll see artwork from members of the Nation and other local Indigenous artists. It’s that culture shift that I think is so needed, especially in Indigenous business. It’s more than just somebody bringing home the paycheque. Imagine a day where this is your workday — you come here and you help people, and it’s a beautiful opportunity that wouldn’t otherwise be here without economic development. It aligns with this whole idea of reconciliation — how to approach it in a collaborative way. It will take time, but it’s really just as simple as asking instead of telling.

How does that collaborative approach reflect Indigenous values?

Indigenous business is all about developing genuine relationships that are not based on paperwork. I think the biggest dichotomy in this misunderstanding in business between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups is that non-Indigenous want the paper — that makes them feel trust. For Indigenous groups, that means little — you meet me, meet me again, meet me again, know me for a year or two and then I will listen to your recommendations and probably trust them. It’s so different.

How did you come to know your Indigenous roots?

My whole life, I knew I was Italian. But it was

probably in my late teens that my mum started seeking her own family, and, by osmosis, I learned that I was somehow Indigenous. She was taken away from her family at three years old, and she didn’t meet them again until she was 45. She never sat us down [to tell us], and she doesn’t look Indigenous at all. There was this major gap in my early 20s where I discovered that this had happened, and my mum started pinning a lot of her memories of what that was. It was probably very painful for her. She’s somebody who doesn’t deal with things; she’s learned to sweep it away — you just don’t talk about it again.

You could consider me almost a success story of what the government intended to do. Here I am living a life, driving my car, paying my taxes.

It’s exactly what they wanted. I don’t speak a single word of Cree. My own mom couldn’t speak to her own mother [when they were reunited]. When she was taken away, they were forbidden from speaking Cree. If they spoke a word of Cree, they had to have a stone on their tongue for the whole day. Shockingly, she’s the most optimistic human I’ve ever known.

How has this framed your motivation and career path?

Over the last decade, it really internally pushed my career in a direction towards serving Indigenous people and communities. If I

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couldn’t do that with the knowledge that I’ve gained, then I would be doing a disservice to her and almost disrespecting what she went through — that it was for nothing. I believe strength is genuinely understanding both cultures at the table, to help bridge the gap between the groups. I think they can thrive really well together. Yes, you can have a business on your own as either non-Indigenous or Indigenous. But if it’s about reconciliation, growth and economic success, the only way to get there is to work together. That’s really my path now. It has a deeper meaning for me than a job. If you can take a positive away from everything that’s happened, it’s hopefully making a difference and being part of this reconciliation movement in my own way.

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How was it in the beginning, when you started taking that on in your work?

In the beginning, I was a person who spoke at First Nations and told them what I was going to do for them. It took me some learning and some feedback — strong feedback — sometimes it felt so uncomfortable. But now I’m so grateful. It’s those people that have the courage to say, “Don’t talk at me, talk with me, ask me questions.”

It was being around Chief Recalma from the Qualicum First Nation. He is so quiet in meetings, he barely speaks. But when he does, it really means something. Without being taught directly, he showed me another way to do business — that’s with both your ears open and your mouth only open when it needs to be open. Even in responding to people, we don’t always have to say something or compare it to something we’ve been through — just listen.

It’s really just exposure and immersing myself and welcoming the discomfort that it may bring.

What have you learned?

No community is the same. I cannot just transfer to another community what I learned over three years working in another. You can take some of those tools with you, but at the end of the day, it comes back to what I said, building genuine relationships. I’m not going to do that by telling a community about my work history. I’m standing here for a reason in this position — I’m here to serve you, so I’m going to need you to share with me what that looks like for you. What’s your vision, and I’ll help you get there. It’s nonstop learning. If any one of us, as humans, thinks about how we build a genuine relationship with somebody, the answer is the same: it’s simple, and it does take time. But the fact that it takes time is a complete contradiction to how we live our lives today. We’re always looking for the quickest way from A to B.

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“We just want to make sure that the business aligns with not simply a strategic plan, but the overall vision that the community has to protect its lands and resources and people. ”

What advice do you have for people interested in partnering with Malahat Nation?

The Malahat SkyWalk is an example of what success looks like for Indigenous economic development — a multitiered project whose long-term impact will include improved well-being and access to resources for the Nation.

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HOST HOTEL

We’re open to business. We just want to make sure that the business aligns with not simply a strategic plan, but the overall vision that the community has to protect its lands and resources and people. Come on in and meet us.

That’s the only way that we’ll get from step one to step two.

I get a lot of emails — I’ve literally had people that I’ve never met just send an agreement. You would never, ever do that in downtown Vancouver. You would not walk into the president’s office and hand him an agreement if he had never met you.

What is your approach to economic development?

That’s the thing with economic development that a lot of people don’t think about — it’s so much more than just the bottom line. It’s not necessarily about everybody getting the same thing. It’s about everybody getting everything they need to thrive for themselves and their families. That’s a success.

Many non-Indigenous groups don’t know how to go about reconciliation. They have the intent, but they’re not sure how. So when they are put into a position of doing business, it creates an organic sort of bridge.

For example, a company meets with me about a business opportunity. They talk about some of the opportunities that will come out of that for the Nation, for example, education or youth programming. I can then loop in our employment coordinator, and it creates a whole other layer of that opportunity.

That means so much more than just the net revenue.

You can’t pay for those resources unless you have some flow of funds. But if that flow of funds is pulling away from the other aspects of what true economic development is, then that’s not a good strategy. The multi-layered ones are the most successful relationships that we’ll have.

Can you tell me more about the two projects (the business park and the film studios) you are working on now?

Malahat Innovation Park is a greenfield project in the infrastructure development phase. We will be looking to secure tenants in early 2022 for a tenancy date in early 2023. The park itself will support innovative businesses, and could potentially act as a symbiotic hub between various collaborators. For example, we are currently speaking to potential tenants involved in a number of diverse industries, including marine vessel technology, environmental mapping and analytics, hydrogen production, waste recycling and solar energy product manufacturing, to name a few. The location of the Malahat Innovation Park allows for ideal proximity to water, a major airport and the highway for both island and international transport.

The Malahat Film Studio is a major project with an estimated five years from feasibility to complete buildout. We are currently in the feasibility stage, specifically seeking to confirm interest from other Nations in a 100 per cent Indigenous-owned project. The details of the project timeline will be more clear in spring 2022, as we work towards detailed planning for the film studio and on-site support services, such as equipment, props, visual technology, film production processing, as well as the village and surrounding residences.  DOUGLAS 21

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Tried, tested and true Becoming a green business means taking concrete action. Here are six steps that Vancouver Island businesses have implemented to reduce their impact.

BY ALDYN CHWELOS

W

e’ve reached a point now with climate change where we can no longer wait to act. As individuals or businesses, we are all accountable for progress toward a greener future. Where to start, though, isn’t always an easy question. Yet, as hard as they can be to imagine, the solutions are all

around us — many have been here for years.

There’s no one way to become a green business. These six actions taken by local businesses show that sustainability initiatives can vary. These organizations found solutions unique to them and the ways their businesses interact with energy and resources.

2

CHANGE BEHAVIOUR

INCREASE EFFICIENCY

Sometimes true change requires re-imagining how we do business or creating opportunities for others to do the same. The Den, a sustainable goods shop in Ucluelet, is reshaping how tourists and hospitality businesses consume goods. Their zero-waste refill program provides local hotels and Airbnbs with an alternative to conventional high-waste hygiene products. Providing replenishable toxin-free products makes it easier for local businesses to reduce the single-use plastic waste created by the hospitality industry.

Hunt and Gather Hair Company is close to reaching carbon neutral status. Part of what helped them get there was switching to low-flow hair washing wands which reduce the amount of hot water required to wash client hair. According to calculations by the Vancouver Island Green Business Collective, this has saved 481 cubic metres of water since Hunt and Gather Hair Co made the change earlier this year.

1

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3 4

BUILD BETTER BUILDINGS In our quest for greener cities, we can’t forget the building blocks from which they are forged. Alexzi Building Solutions is the Island’s first Nexii-certified manufacturing plant. Their building envelopes are constructed using non-toxic materials and are 40 per cent more airtight than conventional construction, resulting in better thermal efficiency.

They are also extremely resistant to earthquakes, fires and floods, allowing developers to build future-proof buildings as climate change creates more natural disasters.

SWITCH TO RENEWABLES Renewables are not just for vehicles. Any equipment that burns fossil fuels are good candidates for making changes. Clean Air Yard Care uses only battery-charged and electric lawn equipment (the latter which is powered by solar energy). Gas-powered tools produce large amounts of emissions. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, an hour behind a traditional mower could produce the same amount of greenhouse gases as 350 miles in a car. By switching to renewables, Clean Air Yard Care decreased their business’s environmental footprint and gave individuals a green choice when choosing a landscaping company.

6

5

CREATE SYMBIOSIS Moving the location of Victoria Distillers in 2016 was strategic, as it allowed them to lean on their neighbour, the Sidney Pier Hotel & Spa, to create a closed-loop geothermal system. During distillation, heat separates from the alcohol. Normally, this energy would be wasted, but, instead, it is captured and transferred to the hotel to heat their building. When the heat is used up, the cold water is returned to the distillery where it is used in the condensers.

This process transfers 850,000 BTU’s of energy to the hotel during every run of the still and saves 7,000 litres of water.

TRAIN SUSTAINABLE EMPLOYEES To begin innovating on climate solutions, we need a workforce that understands the problem and feels confident bringing ideas forward. At Schneider Electric, all employees undergo sustainability training. Not only does this help build green leaders, but it keeps companies accountable. According to Schneider’s Sustainability Impact report, 81 per cent of their employees feel confident reporting unethical behaviour. Large problems require big teams with the knowledge and the trust to innovate.

DOUGLAS 25

Transparency Rules Creating a truly sustainable clothing brand is a disruptive pursuit. Ecologyst is bravely challenging the status quo to offer ethically made clothing that stands the test of time.

BY CARLA SORRELL

T

he fashion industry is considered a major contributor to air, water and soil pollution, as well as an enabler of exploitative sweatshop conditions for garment workers.

Fashion accounts for around 10 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. The last few years have brought increased awareness to the issues at play.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg used a recent interview with Vogue Scandinavia to call out fashion companies for greenwashing.

“Many are making it look as if the fashion industry are starting to take responsibility, by spending fantasy amounts on campaigns where they portray themselves as ‘sustainable,’ ‘ethical,’ ‘green,’ ‘climate neutral’ and ‘fair,’” Thunberg wrote in an Instagram post, promoting the article. “But let’s be clear: This is almost never anything but pure greenwashing. You cannot mass produce fashion or consume ‘sustainably’ as the world is shaped today. That is one of the many reasons why we will need a system change.”

Ecologyst’s founder René Gauthier knew he wanted to change the system. But turning away from the successful business he had already built, whose manufacturing and supply chains relied on traditional models, was no easy feat. It meant completely reshaping how the company does business.

“If you want to stay in business, then you better figure out how to get transparent.”

—René Gauthier

26 DOUGLAS

“I have a passion for doing things a bit differently,” says Gauthier, whose business profs at university thought he was “mental” when he wanted to pursue a surf company, Sitka, back in the early 2000s. Shaping surfboards quickly turned to a line of branded lifestyle gear and the rest is history. The takeaway? Gauthier knows how to trust his instincts.

Gauthier chose to focus on eliminating plastic from the environment. He stopped using microplastics in ecologyst’s clothes. Typically found in clothing, microplastic particles wash off from products such as synthetic clothes, contributing up to 35 per cent of the primary plastic polluting our oceans. Every time we do our laundry, an average of 9 million microfibers are released into wastewater treatment plants that cannot filter them.

“The choice there is to stop making clothing out of plastic; it’s a simple solution, right?” says Gauthier. “People are pretty hooked on it at the moment, and I want to change that. It starts with us walking the walk and talking the talk.”

Gauthier wanted a model based on what people actually need, rather than what they want — making fewer, better items.

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

Systematic Change Transparency is foundational to transforming the global fashion industry. A lack of transparency perpetuates a system where people are expected to trust brands that have continued to put profit and growth above all else — this is where the dubious environmental claims that account for greenwashing are a problem.

Literally reinventing the wheel, ecologyst’s newly opened headquarters are a factory, warehouse, distribution center and shoppable showroom, all in one. It’s also home to ecologyst Films, whose projects reflect the company’s values and mission to do things differently — going against the grain to slow down content creation by looking closely at issues and giving voice to those who own the stories being told.

Located in the historic Powerhouse building at the end of Victoria’s Store Street, the stunning location fosters connection over consumption and is a model that the company hopes to roll out in other cities in the Pacific Northwest and across Canada.

In a traditional supply chain, most feedback will never make it back to the top. Products that are sold by an independent retailer, not by the brand itself, will find far more barriers to closing that loop. Even if the feedback does make it back to the brand, they then have to disseminate it through the right channels, which might include designers, trading companies, manufacturing contractors.

With garment workers in the same room as customers browsing the shop floor, ecologyst DOUGLAS 27

has been able to produce small batches of each item, make ongoing adjustments to improve fit and increase quantities on demand. When clothes are made by overseas contractors, brands get pushed by factories to meet high minimum orders, creating increased waste when products aren’t purchased.

Gathering customer feedback seems to be a natural process given the setup on Store Street. The ecologyst team is customer-focused, both with in-person sales and online, offering live fitting sessions online and writing personalized notes to customers for every order shipped.

“Within this space, the people actually of the making garments are literally hearing the microplastics feedback,” says Gauthier. “It’s not a very big loop.” found in In fact, transparency is at the heart of the water everything. It’s the reason they landed the are related name ecologyst, after issuing an open call to the community, and it’s the reason that ecologyst to textile recently achieved its goal of 20 per cent washings. community ownership. Previously, the team had been creating a monthly newsletter, updating a small group of investors on the company’s wins, fails and industry news.

“It was a lot of work for half a dozen people to get this email,” says Gauthier “So we thought, what if we send it to our entire list? We’re a transparent company. Let’s let people see what we’re talking about.”

They sent it to 30,000 people, and the response was more than positive — customers replied asking how they could invest. Gauthier realized that maybe there was another route, one that didn’t leave him “pounding down the door of VCs that didn’t seem to understand what we are trying to achieve.” In 2019, that route led to raising $700,000 in equity crowdfunding through a campaign on FrontFundr.

JAMES JONES

30-35%

Ecologyst’s newly opened Victoria headquarters are a factory, warehouse, distribution centre and shoppable showroom, all in one. Located in the historic Powerhouse building at the end of Victoria’s Store Street, the stunning location fosters connection over consumption, and is a model that the company hopes to roll out in other cities.

"Should I buy this piece of clothing?"

Q&A with Lisa McAnulty, ecologyst’s sustainability and innovation specialist.

Do I need something new?

Buying a garment through a second life program, vintage or passed down can reduce the impact by over 80 per cent.

It also keeps perfectly good gear out of landfills. Two thumbs up!

Will it go out of style, or is it classic?

By prolonging the use of a garment by just nine months, the environmental impact can be reduced by as much as 20–30 per cent.

Purchasing garments that fit your lifestyle and function for numerous events in your life will keep your product in use longer. We recommend owning fewer, better-quality pieces that you love.

Is it made of natural or synthetic materials?

A thicker synthetic blend button-up shirt with polyester buttons could contain nearly

28 DOUGLAS

one pound of plastic. When these garments are worn or laundered, microplastic shedding occurs. These fibres end up in our waterways and are ingested by aquatic beings and humans alike. Microplastics have been found in many foods and human placentas, and take hundreds of years to degrade. We suggest opting for natural fibres whenever possible.

How long will it last?

By offering a repair program, ecologyst can keep perfectly functional garments in use approximately 1.4 times longer. A badge of honour — it's also a way to customize.

How you care for your garment matters.

By washing clothing less, using cold water and skipping the dryer, we can significantly reduce our emissions impact and keep clothing lasting longer. Try airing after wearing (a little fresh air will do you good).

Who made this garment?

In some countries, people can be paid a mere one dollar per hour for manufacturing clothing while being subjected to potentially adverse working conditions. At ecologyst, our factory team members are paid a family living wage and work alongside the entire team at our Victoria head office. When we don't make it in-house, we work with manufacturers across Canada and one facility in the United States to ensure people are treated fairly. People matter.

How is it delivered?

We feel it's important how products are delivered. We use packaging materials that are easily recyclable in local and international facilities (cardboard/paper).

We prioritize ground shipping whenever possible, as it is a 4x reduction in impact

At All Costs Ecologyst’s clothing comes at a cost — the cost of fair pay for everyone contributing to the supply chain (garment workers in Victoria make the family living wage of $19.50/hour, whereas the minimum wage for garment workers in Bangladesh is $96 USD/month); the cost of quality, ethically produced fibres; the cost of offering lifetime repairs. Staying on top of these decisions requires ongoing research and continuous improvement.

Many customers have provided feedback that this is the only brand they will buy new, says Lisa McAnulty, ecologyst’s sustainability and innovation specialist. Customers come to the brand searching for ethical, sustainable clothing and arrive well informed.

“They’re curious about different processes we use and where the fibres come from,” says McAnulty.

A sustainable textile will take into consideration factors such as raw material extraction, textile production, added chemistry and end-of-life. There are certifications available to identify the caliber of the material, the quality of life of the people farming and producing those materials, and the quality of any additives, like dyes, which are often toxic and potentially harmful to the wearer.

These highly certified suppliers are still few and far between. Organic cotton makes up only 1 per cent of global cotton. The majority of the world’s leading ethical wool, ZQ-certified merino, which supports the five animal freedoms, farmer welfare and land

versus air shipping. We offset our shipping impact through supporting projects around the world that are working to restore biodiversity and green spaces.

Where is the information about a brand’s sustainability?

Most companies that are committed to sustainable development practices will openly share information on their websites. This could be on a perproduct basis or their overall strategy for corporate social responsibility. If there isn’t information in relation to social, environmental or ethical business practices, we encourage people to ask that of their customer experience teams. If they aren’t willing to share this information, one might wonder why they wouldn’t, and if that would be a positive choice.

DOUGLAS 29

its own operator, knitting machines can run management best practies, and from a small autonomously for long periods of time, even pool of sheep in New Zealand. overnight. One operator can oversee up to 10 “I always want to understand the full impact machines. The benefits will move ecologyst of making a decision to use more [of any one material] as well,” says McAnulty. “There’s just another step closer to filling orders on demand and offering a range of stretch clothing. so many more levels of consideration — there might be a forest cut down to The Payoffs make room for more farming.”

In 2020, ecologyst had the Looking ahead, ecologyst Synergy Enterprises do a is evolving its knitwear carbon assessment. The processes, which will include company had reached a the use of climate beneficial similar scale, in terms of of clothing wool — a fibre that sequesters revenue, compared to 2013 that gets more carbon than it produces when it was last assessed. and comes from California, But their carbon footprint made significantly reducing its had reduced dramatically never gets carbon footprint in transit. The — 80 tonnes of carbon that purchase of an industrial scale purchased. previously resulted from knitting machine will enable shipping was reduced to the brand to localize its knitting seven tonnes. production, which currently Ecologyst has launched a takes place in New York for second life program, where lack of alternatives, their products are now sold online alongside “One of the challenges of not using any new styles, giving a new purpose to pre-loved plastics in our products is stretch,” says pieces. Anyone who has an ecologyst product Gauthier. “But you can knit things to achieve they’d like to pass along can list it on the a mechanical stretch. That’s an area that we’d website, and when their product sells, they will like to develop.” receive an ecologyst gift card to use on a new Unlike a sewing machine, which requires or second life product. Ecologyst also recycles

MOMME HALBE

30%

Garment workers are paid a family living wage and work on ecologyst’s shop floor where they can hear feedback from customers browsing and trying on clothes, which might result in changes to styles, fit and production.

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From our family to yours, we wish you a holiday season filled with more in-person visits and real hugs.

On average, the production of one piece of clothing takes

9 kg of C02.

offcuts produced at their factory location to increase circularity.

This still uncommon service is offered by companies like Patagonia and Lululemon but is something we can hope to see more of in the future. Bodies, moods and lifestyles change, says McAnulty, and a program like this acknowledges that our relationship with clothes needs to evolve.

The program will contribute to an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and will significantly reduce water use. The scale of potential for second life and resale clothing is projected to double in the next five years, reaching $77 billion, estimates a report by thredUP Co. “Although it’s a very low percentage point of people who usually take advantage of a program like this, I think it’s a highly impactful opportunity,” says McAnulty.

“We want people to keep a product alive as long as they can. Twenty to 30 per cent of your closet lays dormant most of the time.

We’re trying to mitigate that by providing timeless design: functionality, durability, all these other aspects. We want to be able to make sure that people can still love that piece and pass it on to the next person.” 

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Business Profile

ELATE COSMETICS Changing the beauty industry, one lipstick at a time

H

ave you ever caught a glance at all the containers of makeup, creams, and cleansers in front of you during your beauty routine and wondered, “Does self care really have to come at the expense of caring for the planet?”

Melodie Reynolds, CEO of Elate Beauty, founded her company in Victoria, B.C. seven years ago with a vision to create an ethical beauty brand that didn’t require making sacrifices in regard to quality. As such, she set out to produce beautifully designed, high-performing, vegan and cruelty-free cosmetics using an ethical supply chain.

“Our vision is a world without single-use beauty packaging, so refillable packaging and sustainability are at the heart of everything we do. That’s why we are a B-Corp Certified company,” Reynolds explains.

Certified B Corporations, according to bcorporation.net, are “businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.”

In fact, Elate Beauty is among the first beauty brands to make this kind of acrossthe-board sustainability a primary tenet of its business, which is no easy feat within the mammoth, highly competitive beauty industry of today. But, it’s working!

Recently, the success of Elate has empowered Reynolds to expand and acquire Miko Skin Co., such that Elate Beauty and Miko Skin Co. are now under the umbrella company Eluma Beauty Inc. “In acquiring Miko Skin Co., we now offer not just makeup but also refillable skincare to our B2B partners, which compounds the effect we have in reducing waste in the beauty industry,” Reynolds explains. “In fact, we are not only carbon neutral but we also plant one tree for every order out the door and donate 1% of revenue to our partnership with Rainbow Refugee.”

Elate is now about to launch its next innovation: a completely reimagined user experience for the makeup palette, as well as a refillable mascara tube. Traditional makeup palettes leave you with shades

1-236-471-6486 // elatebeauty.com

“OUR VISION IS A WORLD WITHOUT SINGLEUSE BEAUTY PACKAGING ...” you won’t use, and a plastic container to throw out at the end. The Elate: Unearthed Palettes are completely customizable and come with a lifetime guarantee. The Mascara tube has a completely waste-free option with a metal applicator wand, and refills come in aluminum tubes that will be sanitized and reused for a closed-loop system.

By educating and empowering people to choose refillable products and reduce waste, Eluma Beauty provides customers with a unique experience for their daily beauty rituals, allowing their choices to have a positive impact on the world and their skin.

Business Profile

SHIFT ENERGY GROUP Global issues, local solar solutions

I

n a recent article posted on ctv.ca entitled “What Did Canada Sign On For At COP26?,” the journalist reported that “Canada, the U.S. and U.K. were among signatories to a deal to stop any new, direct public financing for oil, gas and coal development by the end of 2022. Instead, the countries agreed to invest in renewable energy. Canada’s natural resource minister called it a ‘big deal.’”

Of course, it’s not just governments but also average citizens who want to be a part of the solution. So British Columbians would be right to wonder: These days, just how accessible is the implementation of renewable energy use, such as solar, for the average homeowner, business owner, builder, or developer in our neck of the woods?

Enter Shift Energy Group Inc. Founded in March of 2010, Shift has grown to become western Canada’s single source for comprehensive clean energy solutions as a renewable energy company focusing on the design, engineering, procurement and construction of solar power systems and energy storage.

In October of 2021, Concert and Jawl Properties contracted Shift to design and build a 150.3kW Solar System at 525/545 Superior Street to further complement the buildings’ optimized environmental footprint. The project is part of Capital Park, the dynamic mixed-use community in Victoria’s James Bay neighbourhood.

It’s a five-storey, class AA LEED Platinum certified office and retail building. The energized 334 panel solar system Shift is putting in place will generate enough electricity to offset over 48 metric tons of GHG Emissions, using BC Hydro’s latest reported GHG Emissions Factors, and the system will generate over 5,340,238.19 kwh’s of electricity over its 40-year lifespan.

As President Colyn Strong notes, “It’s an exciting time. We’ve been in operation for over ten years now, so the culmination of our experiences allows us to seamlessly deliver projects from conception to commissioning. That’s why our competition has a hard time keeping up, and we feel our brand is well positioned capture market share. Those who approach us to

SHIFT ENERGY GROUP HAS BECOME WESTERN CANADA’S SINGLE SOURCE FOR COMPREHENSIVE CLEAN ENERGY SOLUTIONS. implement their solar solutions learn quickly that we make the process of doing business easy. Our team focuses on providing longterm value, saving our customers money, and the environment.”

Advances in technology have led to lower material cost, while electricity costs continue to climb. This combination has led to an increased adoption and a meaningful financial payback, resulting in solar being accessible now more than ever before.

Rendering of Capital Park’s energized 334 panel solar system.

In collaboration with:

#205-2657 Wilfert Road, Victoria // 1-844-507-4438 // shiftenergygroup.com DOUGLAS 33

Business Profile

DRIVEWISE BC Driving into the future with tech that protects

I

t was a no-brainer for Kate Harris to install cameras and a fleet management system in all DriveWise BC’s vehicles when inquiries started coming in from concerned parents and students in light of safety concerns and allegations that had arisen in the local driving school industry.

“It’s our job as educators to react quickly and make changes as we see the needs of our students change, so that’s what we did. It was initially really difficult for our staff as we heard stories from young women who had not felt safe. Even though the issues weren’t related to our school, we felt shock and concern, so we reviewed our policies and practices to make sure we were doing everything possible to create a safe learning environment.”

DriveWise chose to add the cameras as an extra layer of safety, so they are now in use in all of their vehicles around the province.

Instructors at DriveWise BC are in support of the move and have given formal consent to the

use of cameras during their lessons. Students provide consent when they first register with the school.

“Before we made a final decision, we wanted to know what our students thought about being recorded during lessons. Out of close to 200 of them, all but one said yes,” said Harris.

The new cameras record the student driver and the instructor as well as the vehicle surroundings, however the system protects the privacy of the public by blurring license plates and the faces of people outside of the vehicle.

In the short term, the recordings will be stored for 100 hours and only be reviewed with students or instructors if there is a driving incident or complaint. In the longer term, DriveWise BC plans to incorporate educational enhancements that would allow instructors to provide students with lesson footage with their teaching methods and areas of driver training to focus on.

“It’s our job as educators to react quickly and make changes as we see the needs of our students change, so that’s what we did.”

DriveWise BC is a family-owned and -operated company offering ICBCaccredited driving programs for drivers of all ages. Harris is proud of the school’s almost 50-year history of teaching new drivers how to safely navigate our roadways in an ever-changing driving environment and plans to continue leading the industry in safety and innovation.

For more information on DriveWise BC, visit their website at www.drivewisebc.com.

107-3550 Saanich Road, Victoria | 250.475.0666 34 DOUGLAS

Business Profile

VANCOUVER ISLAND GREEN BUSINESS COLLECTIVE Steering our local economy toward a greener future

T

he Vancouver Island Green Business Collective (VIGBC) was built to support businesses seeking practical and affordable ways to reduce their environmental impact and enhance their sustainability initiatives. Whether you want to refine current practices or are starting from scratch, the VIGBC team is here to help! Our one-on-one approach allows us to identify custom solutions to suit your needs. Businesses can be certified as Silver, Gold or Green based on environmental metrics. Become a climate leader and give your clients the green light to shop their values — set up your VIGBC site visit today!

VIGBC verifier, Jarret Klim (right), conducts site visit at Patagonia Victoria with store manager, Juan Portilla.

300-569 Johnson Street // vigbc@synergyfoundation.ca // www.vigbc.ca // Instagram: @vigreenbiz

Business Profile

MAYFAIR OPTOMETRIC CLINIC Live Your Life With Happy Eyes

H

iring the right people for the right positions is the “secret sauce” to the success of Mayfair Optometric Clinic (MOC). That role is filled by Mary Lou Newbold, Chief Eyecare Officer overseeing operations at MOC for over 20 years.

“Having so many skilled employees who have been with us for so long is what I am most proud of,” says Mary Lou, “And we never lose sight of our responsibility to our patients and our community to offer fair value, and be responsible citizens. If it isn’t right for the patient, it isn’t right for MOC — we live by that each and every day.”

3196 Douglas Street // mayfairoptometric.com // 250-361-4444 // 9am–5pm, 6 days/week

DOUGLAS 35

HeroWork brings businesses together to donate their time, capital and resources to renovate frontline charitable organizations. They are currently supporting the Indigenous Perspectives Society (pictured) by transforming their building into an updated and culturally relevant space.

36 DOUGLAS

MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK Pair the business mindset with the reach of a charitable organization, and the result is astonishing. The right programs help businesses lend their time, resources and skills to give in a targeted and efficient way that has a huge scale of impact.

BY ALEX VAN TOL

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

I

n 2018, electrician Cory McGregor volunteered on a HeroWork Radical Renovation project for the Mustard Seed Dignity Market. One lunch break, he polled his colleagues to see why they had chosen to work on the project.

“Why are you interested in coming out on a Saturday at eight in the morning to volunteer?” recalls McGregor, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW Local 230). “And one of our members said, ‘You know, growing up, my parents relied on the food bank.’ ” It surprised McGregor.

But then again, it didn’t.

The gaps are everywhere. They’ve been there for a long time — and they’re widening.

COVID has given us a sobering glimpse of the social fabric, and the memo has dropped: there is much to be done, and we need to do it together.

Business is in the middle of everything in a local economy. It is both giver and receiver.

It is the engine for recovery. It is the strongest vector for driving social change. And, for most local businesses, it is reliant on a strong base of community support, without which it withers.

The critical issues that impact our community’s most vulnerable members also directly impact and influence a company’s staff, clients and business opportunities. Giving back with a donation of time, resources and skills

strengthens the ties of our social contract and provides a significant return on investment: well-resourced humans create stronger economies and communities.

Business is the Fastest Vector for Driving Change Money is energy, and it is one of the fastestmoving kinds. Business has the capacity to harness and direct that energy toward impactful ends. In business, money aggregates quickly, projects get off the ground faster, change is handled more nimbly and a focus on efficiency maximizes the value of the contribution.

NGOs are at the forefront of human fragility and unserved needs. By lending their time, resources and skills, businesses can scale charities’ efforts multiplicatively, if not exponentially. As a local example, HeroWork brings businesses together to donate their time, capital and resources to renovate front line charitable organizations that stitch the social net together.

“When we look at community development, it's not the government doing that,” says Trevor Botkin, executive director for the Victoria division of HeroWork Canada. “Charities are taking care of people right now. And any time [businesses] can involve themselves directly in making those wheels turn, you're directly impacting people that are suffering the most.”

Many hands make light work. Programs DOUGLAS 37

2.39” × 9.58”

02/23/21

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

THE FUTURE IS NOT OPTIONAL

UVic MBA IN SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION Sustainability and innovation are a requirement for business, and they should be required in an MBA. That’s why the UVic MBA in Sustainable Innovation is the only MBA we offer.

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“What we’re trying to do is take people from all walks of life, from all business acumens, and bring just a piece of their time and expertise together in a very powerful way to make the impact in the least amount of effort.”

like HeroWork’s Radical Renovations allow businesses to give in a targeted, efficient way that has a huge scale of impact.

The Mustard Seed, Peers Victoria, Anawim Companions Society, Our Place’s Therapeutic Recovery Community, and the Indigenous Perspectives Society are just a few recent Radical Renovations. To make the cut as a Radical Renovation candidate, HeroWork studies local charities to ensure that a given project will serve the community for years.

“Can we set this charity up for success?”

Botkin asks. “When we talk about overdoses, when we talk about food insecurity, these are growing needs in our city. We can't throw enough resources at them. So what we can do is take these charities that are doing it well and say ‘How do we build capacity for you?’ ” Many businesses know they want to contribute to their community. What HeroWork provides is a way to give back that is driven

38 DOUGLAS FILE NAME: UVic_20-0402_Print-Ad_Douglas_MBA

by the charity's needs, creates high impact results and is painstakingly organized. Hooking up with local businesses helps not-for-profit organizations eliminate up to 70 per cent of infrastructure renewal costs.

“We know that some percentage of our work is going to be pro bono, and we really look to see what opportunities there are out there for us to contribute,” says Justin Gammon, architect with Christine Lintott Architects, which commits about $25,000 toward charitable projects annually. “HeroWork has made it really easy for us. They give us lots of time to prepare, and the scope of work is really well-defined. It makes it easy for us as businesspeople to make a rationalized decision about…what are the resources that we've got looking ahead? Do we have that capacity? And can we carry this off in a meaningful way that's going to achieve the goals for the organization involved?”

Joint Projects Facilitate Connections In an interesting alchemical process, HeroWork’s cross-sector collaborations function as a collection point for people who share similar values.

“There are a lot of firms out there, and we work with a broad range of them,” says Gammon. “But there seems to be a cast of characters that we gravitate toward. These are people that become friends.”

Working together to renovate a building opens an additional avenue for professionals to connect. For leaders in the not-for-profit sector, those networks are hard to come by, simply on

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Two vounteers work in the garden at Anawim House as part of a HeroWork Radical Rennovation project.

the basis of how much time employees spend “in the weeds” of their mission.

“We're very skin and bones,” says director Terry Edison-Brown of his operating budget at Anawim House. “My actual work is probably 95 per cent with our people and 5 per cent executive director duties. I don't have much time to actually get out and introduce myself and meet people.”

As networks on all sides expand, so do local business referrals — a reminder that a rising tide lifts all boats. As people receive, so they give: Edison-Brown has volunteered on other HeroWork builds, which in turn has expanded his NGO-to-NGO referral network, helping to break down silos between organizations.

“I get to know those organizations better,” says Edison-Brown. “Because we go and talk, and I am able to find out more about that organization than I [knew] before.”

It’s a fulfilling arrangement on either side.

“It takes a village,” says Edison-Brown, whose organization benefited from a HeroWork Radical Renovation that brought new offices, repaired a flooding balcony, expanded workshop space, and added a fence and even some landscaping. The renovation gifted Anawim House with structural improvements that the organization itself would never have used precious internal resources to achieve.

“Outside, our landscape was absolutely atrocious,” says Edison-Brown. “But we as an organization would never put money into beautifying our home because we have to feed, we have to provide. Steak on the table versus a

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flower outside? I'm sorry. The steak wins. And HeroWork, because of who they are, they see this. Our concept at Anawim is to bring people into a loving home, get to know who they are and then we can help them help themselves.

But if [our house is] a piece of shit, they're going to feel like shit.”

HeroWork helped Anawim match the quality of its exterior to the important work being done inside.

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Not-for-profit organizations and businesses alike are efficient and effective, and collaborative projects where there’s a clear and doable goal are incredibly rewarding — for the project team and for each individual who throws in their hat. In its current pilot, BBB4Good, the Better Business Bureau is identifying and issuing “trust marks” to businesses that have a purpose alongside their profit motive — a drive to give back in some way.

“Businesses are wonderful,” says Vancouver Island Better Business Bureau CEO and president Rosalind Scott. “They love to help.”

One such business is The Parkside Hotel and Spa, which positions sustainability and social responsibility at the core of its operations.

The hotel, originally built to meet LEED certification, was always “supposed to have a more meaningful purpose. Very forward thinking,” says Trina White, general manager of the Parkside.

Much of this evolution has relied on partnerships with local charities and not-forprofits. The hotel is entirely carbon neutral through offsets such as contributions to the Great Bear Rainforest and the Quadra Island An aerial view of the courtyard at the Parkside Hotel and Spa. The company collaborates with a network of local organizations to reduce waste and achieve its carbon neutral status.

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reforestation project. All of their recyclables, totalling upwards of $500 per month, are donated to the Surfrider Foundation. And, with the help of Bees Please Farms, the hotel’s rooftop houses a pair of beehives to help contribute to the neighbourhood's pollination resources. The Parkside pollinators roam from Beacon Hill to St. Ann’s Academy and the streets surrounding the hotel, helping keep local plants healthy.

While Parkside continuously tries to reduce consumption and purchase only what they need, renovations and updates are routinely required for the hotel. When this happens, they work with various local organizations to ensure their used products find second homes.

“It’s all about making sure that everything avoids the landfill and can be reused in a meaningful way,” says White.

Furniture has helped spruce up low-budget senior centres and linens have been donated to be emergency supplies in communities dealing with fires or floods and have also been used to make first aid supplies.

White feels this connection to local not-forprofits and a deep commitment to their values is an integral part of doing business these days.

“Businesses can no longer operate with that traditional kind of one way compensation,” she says. “I think that businesses that don't shift are going to find themselves sunsetting in the next decade. They just won't be aligned with the consumer.”

Not only does giving back help focus a company’s values and make employees feel good, but it also drives profit.

“Consumers want to actually use those companies, buy from those companies,” says Better Business Bureau CEO Rosalind Scott. “If you're going to hire somebody to build your house, you want to know that that company is sustainable, and they've got good practices all the way around.”

Strong Local Economies Offer the Richest Soil The pandemic is a sharp reminder that nothing is guaranteed. That we’re more reliant on one another than we tend to imagine. And that the effects of financial strain, whether hidden or exposed, are at work around us all the time.

Partnering with local charities to donate time, money and expertise maximizes your business’s ability to drive change. It expands your network, fosters stronger ties between community members and breathes strength into the third-sector service providers that heal and give shape to your community.

“You never know who's needing those services,” says Cory McGregor, thinking back to his lunchtime conversation at the Mustard Seed Dignity Market. “The people who you work with in your offices may be relying on some of those services. They may know someone relying on those services, or they may have grown up using those services.” 

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DOUGLAS 41

JONATHAN HAYWARD/THE CANADIAN PRESS

THE

RISK FACTOR

In the past decade, severe weather events have pummelled Canada, accounting for eight of the 10 highest financial loss years in history.

Insurance companies are taking a corresponding hit. But weather alone is not raining down on businesses and their insurance needs.

Cybercrime, supply chain disruptions, class-action lawsuits, directors’ and officers’ liability … it’s a deluge of risks facing businesses.

BY SHANNON MONEO

42 DOUGLAS

Devastated by flooding, B.C. declared a state of emergency in November, 2021, causing speculation that this could be Canada’s costliest natural disaster. Flooding isn’t new to the Province, in 2012 pavement was swept away by raving waters in Two Mile (pictured), just outside of Sicamous, B.C., causing the area to be evacuated.

T

hree days before the town of Lytton, B.C. burned to the ground, Craig Stewart and his family stopped at a delightful cafe in town, during the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Canada.

The coffee shop later burned down.

“It was very sad,” says Stewart, vice president of federal affairs at the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC), an industry association that represents Canada’s private business, home and auto insurers. During their travels, the Stewarts saw the damage brought by B.C.’s wildfires, an ironic twist for Stewart, who leads IBC’s disaster, resilience and climate change work.

“Canada is a riskier place than most,” he says from Ottawa. “We have more floods, more hailstorms, more windstorms. We’re warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world. In the last 15 years, claims payouts have more than quadrupled.”

One mind-boggling example was the June 13, 2020, hailstorm in Alberta. It resulted in 100,000 claims, costing $1.4-billion, putting it in the top 10 of Canada’s costliest natural disasters. The storm lasted 20 minutes, Stewart says.

Four years earlier, the Fort McMurray wildfire resulted in $5.3-billion of loss — Canada’s costliest loss event. And in 2020, during the pandemic, Fort McMurray was hit again when the Athabasca River flooded the downtown, adding a further $562-million in damage.

Insurance Evolves Bryce Kumka has lived in Fort McMurray since 2007, weathering flame, flood and virus.

“The challenge in Canada, we’re a large country, with a lot of climate zones and not a lot of people,” he says. “There’s significant risk but not a lot of policyholders to pay into the pot.”

In 2020, two threats overlapped.

“We were slapped with a flood in the middle of COVID,” says Kumka, a senior account executive with Rogers Insurance in Fort McMurray. The one in a 100-year flood shut down the city’s downtown, causing significant damage. It took some businesses half a year to reopen. Some never reappeared, while others, like hotels, who had been shuttered, opened quickly to accommodate displaced residents.

South Vancouver Island may not be northern Alberta, but the unpredictability and unprecedented payouts associated with climate change have caused insurers to adopt a harder stance which often means steep increases to insurance policies across the board.

In 2019, Lloyd’s of London pulled back operations in Canada, due to financial losses over the previous decade. There has also been consolidation among insurance companies, such as Aviva and Intact. Still, companies like the Zurich Insurance Group have stepped in.

DOUGLAS 43

“Choice is still there,” Stewart says, noting there are more than 200 insurers operating in Canada. But shopping around is required.

To remain profitable, insurance companies are adapting.

“Insurers are realizing the importance of good climate-ready data,” Stewart says. “Our models reflect past history. That’s insufficient now. The past does not reflect the future.”

One perfect example: the day the Fort McMurray wildfire started, it was not classified in the top 25 in Canada for fire risk, yet went on to be the largest claim in Canadian history.

So wildfire and flooding mapping need to be finessed. Currently, predictive models for insurance rates operate at street levels, but Stewart says the goal is to map right down to property levels. Such predictive mapping would clearly show high risk areas. Semi-rural areas around Victoria face known fire risks, windstorms regularly pummel the Coast and the possibility of a major earthquake and resulting tsunami are forever lurking.

Saying No So, how do business owners recognize their risks? On South Vancouver Island, earthquake risk is well known. According to Stewart, B.C. has one of the highest buy-in rates in the world for earthquake coverage, with about 60 per cent of businesses and residences holding policies. Compare that to Montreal, which is rated as having the second-highest probability for an earthquake in Canada,

Forest fire near Port Alice. Nearly 8,700 square kilometres of land were burned in B.C. in 2021 due to wildfires, making it the third worst year on record.

yet only four per cent of the insured have earthquake coverage. Tsunami coverage, meanwhile, reveals a gap.

“It’s not a peril most insurers cover,” he says. While difficult to address, it needs to be dealt with.

And as public sentiment hardens, with taxpayers less willing to subsidize those who decide to start businesses in high risk areas, Stewart says good behaviour by those seeking insurance should be encouraged.

“We need to end government bailouts of those who build in harm’s way,” he says.

 BUYING INSURANCE THE NEED-TO-KNOWS Purchasing insurance for a business today is unlike 30 years ago when options were far fewer.

Insurers still have to generate profit for investors, but they are also partners with businesses, UBC professor Janice Sarra says. Insurers today will want to know if companies are thinking about climate change, risks related to transitioning to a net-zero economy and employment equity.

Courses are available that teach businesses about climate risks, and Sarra suggests businesses designate an employee to keep an eye on developments in the ever-evolving sphere.

“A business should know what exactly does my insurance cover,” says Sarra.

When businesses initially purchase or renew insurance, they are given a questionnaire from the insurer, seeking information about the company.

“Insurers take that data very seriously. The quality of the data is important. The more detail, the better,” says Yarko Petriw, senior vice president with Aon. If the insurer has to make assumptions because the business provided generic or brief answers, the underwriting will be conservative. Honesty and clear answers are the best. And if your 44 DOUGLAS

business is performing well, say so.

“Tell your story in as fulsome a manner as possible,” says Petriw.

It may feel like a hard slog to go into detail, but it could mean an easing of premiums and/or coverage improvements.

Companies should also commit to the ongoing, not annual, evaluation of their business, says Denise Hall at Aon Risk Solutions. This means ensuring the insurance covers what the company is actually doing. She cited the example of a Victoria company that expanded into Ontario.

Insurance should be upgraded to cover the new location.

Businesses should also know what risks are transferred to insurance policies. An example would be a small business owner who thinks they don’t need crime insurance, which deals with employee theft of money or property.

“A business needs a real crystal-clear knowledge of risk,” she says.

Businesses also need to carefully evaluate who they are partnering with and how strong the insurer is. Some insurers may offer lower premiums, but that translates into less coverage,

That includes new builds on flood plains or areas prone to wildfires and lacking fire protection. One example this past summer, sure to be repeated, is that builders in B.C. weren’t able to secure insurance if their projects were near an active wildfire or, in some cases, up to 100 kilometres away. In Australia, some insurers are not covering properties in high fire zones. In the U.S., the pricing for natural disaster insurance is rapidly climbing in susceptible regions. Even Alberta’s oilsands are having problems getting insurance, Kumka says.

Hall says. Does the insurer have good bedside manners? Will it fight the client for hours over a $20 claim? Hall recommends using an insurance broker to analyze the many policy options.

For Kumka, the natural calamity veteran, a disaster recovery plan is key.

“You want to get back into business as soon as possible,” says Kumka. “You want to sit down with your team and figure out what to do if the storefront disappears."

In his office, all computer components are off the ground and there is no paper; it’s all in the cloud, he says. And if a weather event is approaching, remove as much as you can from the business premises.

The menaces of climate change, cybercrime and other risks are predicted to only grow in Canada. Having lived through the rebuild, restoration and rebirth of Fort McMurray in both 2016 and 2020, Kumka says the insurance market will continue to take on higher risks, but at a corresponding price.

“Will you get super good deals? No,” he says. “Make sure the client recognizes risk.”

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Climate Change and Beyond, Mounting Risks

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One item that’s had no trouble breaching the U.S.-Canada border is litigation related to insurance liability and how it’s affecting businesses. In the U.S., there are huge classaction lawsuits against companies, often major carbon emitters, says Janis Sarra, a UBC professor at the Allard School of Law. Company bosses are being sued for not showing due diligence and to protect them, directors’ and officers’ insurance are used.

“We know this will come to Canada from the U.S.,” says Sarra. “Insurers will want to know companies are thinking about climate change.”

In 2021, several class-action lawsuits were certified in Canada against over a dozen insurance companies because they said no to business interruption claims related to COVID. But class-action lawsuits are but one legal hammer. Small- and medium-sized Canadian businesses are in court for a variety of reasons, says Denise Hall, the national broking leader at Aon Risk Solutions in Toronto. Upticks in bankruptcies (many the result of COVID) and employment claims, which can be driven by diversity and inclusion requirements and job losses, are demonstrating that businesses need coverage. Hall says insurance companies are very good at defending policy holders. Even if lawsuits reveal insufficient merit, the cost to defend remains high and a solid insurance policy will protect the company, Hall says.

Another area is errors and omissions insurance (also known as professional liability), which is company-specific and depends on what the business is doing.

In Victoria, for example, tech companies,

The Keyano College campus in downtown Fort McMurray on Tuesday, April 28, 2020. Officials in Fort McMurray were keeping a close eye on river levels after a 25-kilometre ice jam caused major flooding and forced approximately 12,000 people from their homes.

accountants, lawyers, engineers and architects would buy E&O insurance to cover third-party claims for mistakes or negligence caused by employees or the company.

One ubiquitous challenge is cyber risk. Few businesses anywhere are untouched, says Yarko Petriw, a senior vice president with Aon, based in Vancouver. All that’s required is an email address for phishing, spoofing or ransomware to worm their way in. Aon’s team alone sees three claims per day in Canada — just one company in one country. And that’s for companies with cyber coverage, recognizing that there are businesses without coverage, whose incidents may not be known.

“It’s a huge risk,” says Petriw.

And COVID has made it worse, as criminals, who could be anywhere, are preying on fears and vulnerabilities exposed by the pandemic.

Heaping more risk on the cybercrime front is that because more people are working from

home, the chances of clicking on an infected email or opening that nasty attachment are more likely, Hall adds.

And also brought home by the pandemic are supply chain interruptions caused by logistical challenges, product shortages, a labour crunch and weather events. Aluminum, flowers, Ikea furniture, chicken wings are just a few examples. And shortages snowball.

An example: the semiconductor drought has exerted a heavy toll on vehicle manufacturing and tech companies.

Companies should be aware of their potential supply chain weaknesses and come up with

strategies to handle them, such as having a second supplier in cases of pandemics, weather disruptions or political risk.

Petriw admits the insurance industry hasn’t done an adequate job to address supply chain interference.

“There are dozens of products that deal with sub components of the disruptions, but there’s not a single catch-all policy to catch all the risks,” he says.

COVID has highlighted the problem, and Petriw expects insurers are analyzing ways to address the shortfall.

“It’s an evolution,” he says. 

+10.4% The annual rate of increase for commercial insurance from 2019 to 2020.

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DOUGLAS 47

INTEL

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

ENTREPRENEUR

BY JIM HAYHURST

Office Interrupted

The unintended consequences of fully remote work removes the messiness of real interactions but risks losing the good alongside the bad.

JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE

Jim Hayhurst having a laugh at KWENCH’s coworking offices in Victoria. He welcomes the stimulus he gets from inperson interaction.

“It’s not about the space,” says Hayhurst. “It’s about the power dynamic that space represents. It’s about autonomy, choice — or the inherent lack thereof — when leaders decide to make things binary.”

I

’ll be the first to admit I’m a problem in the office.

Back when I was CEO of Pretio Interactive (now Billi Labs), I was sent a kind — but very clear — Slack message by our software developers about my “management by walking around” style of leadership.

“Just a reminder to @jim of the ‘headphones rule’: Two ears covered = do not disturb. One ear = it better be important.

No ears covered = we’re probably about to leave for the day. :) ” It was a reminder for me to be aware of our team members who required long periods of focus, quiet and near-isolation in a sometimes-rambunctious office (headed 48 DOUGLAS

by a definitely rambunctious CEO).

The headphones rule was a clever (and cost-effective) way of creating protective walls in our otherwise very open office — a space that many of you will remember as the VW van, trailer and double-decker bus office on Vancouver Street.

Our building was a veritable petri dish for tech startups and community gatherings and became a local symbol of the era’s focus on creative office environments. One year it was named one of “The World’s Coolest Offices” by Inc. magazine. More recently, a stock image of it was used by Vice in an online article about the “cognitive risks of distraction.” (Ouch.)

And so, I am keenly aware that for

many employees the current work-fromhome reality is a great relief. After years of being told what work “looks like,” they are embracing what it “feels like.”

For others, not so much.

In this latter group’s eyes and ears, the distractions, interruptions and demands of excitable coworkers have been replaced by those of family, roommates, pets and Amazon deliveries. Cramped, nonproductive physical spaces — or, even worse, unhealthy and unsafe relationships — have been magnified to the point of despair.

But where to go?

The “escape” from home to an office, however ephemeral or compromised it may have been (headphones rule or not), was

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unilaterally taken off the table by various stages of lockdown.

As a CEO, I may have had blind spots about how loud I was at times. But I always knew what our team really wanted was choice: the agency to construct their workday — within agreed-upon parameters — to suit individual needs, whether they be physical, behavioural, temporal or technological. The shaded area in the Venn diagram of “what work looks like to my company” and “what work feels like to me” needed to expand.

Ironically, in the depths of the pandemic restrictions, it was now me, the one who previously had laid out the menu for corporate culture, including expectations around interacting with both people and space, who was feeling the effects of the absence of choice and control.

Though no longer running a company, I had a myriad of companies and non-profits I continued to advise. With each Zoom invitation, my extrovert side, whose fuel was live interaction, died a little inside.

Much as I tried to embrace the new reality, I eventually refused to do one-on-one video meetings, opting instead for old-fashioned phone calls where I could go for a walk and not worry about maintaining digital eye contact.

Zoom drained me. Yes, I was “with” people.

But as I eventually told a friend, I began to resent video calls as much as I resented having to disinfect my hands every time I went out.

I lamented how video calls sterilized our conversations. This couldn’t be good for us.

And by “us” I didn’t mean just extroverts.

In fact, if I had learned anything through the various lockdowns, it was that previously binary notions of introvert and extrovert were being challenged with every new wave of restrictions.

No, what I meant was “This isn’t good for people.” Humans. Social animals. Us. The research on “Zoom fatigue” — both anecdotal (“everyone looks bored on Zoom”) and scientific (turns out those millisecond delays on video can inhibit our “dopaminergic pathways”) — is becoming clear.

More and more, I saw people falling into what I called “the velvet rut” — a place of comfort (sweatpants on, video off) — but a rut nonetheless. And like the over-sterilization of one’s hands, I believe there are unintended consequences to removing the messiness of real interactions in real space with real people. We seem to be losing the good stuff, along with the bad. The in-between moments, overheard conversations, body language cues and energy imbued by “LOLs IRL”.

So I’m trying to get my hands dirty again.

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passports, expanded guidelines on gatherings, plus our community’s general reasonableness and responsibility for each other, I am enjoying the new hybridwork model.

My “petri dish” of choice happens to be KWENCH, Tessa McLoughlin’s co-working club on Store Street. Like Pretio’s old space on Vancouver Street, KWENCH first captures your imagination with its looks — bright, airy, cool, creative, unique — but it’s the collision of people, ideas and energy that makes it work.

If you’ll forgive the extended metaphor, I’m loving getting “infected” again. I know it makes me stronger, healthier, more resilient.

All of which leads me back to what I learned (sometimes the hard way) from each of the companies and non-profits I have cofounded or led: It’s not about the space. It’s about the power dynamic that space represents.

It’s about autonomy, choice — or the inherent lack thereof — when leaders decide to make things binary.

Open plan or private offices? Workfrom-home or in-office? Asynchronous or core hours?

Over the past year, I have watched some of the most dynamic, confident leaders in our business community relinquish long-held notions about what productivity, work and engagement mean. The best ones have come to understand that their teams can be trusted — and are best-equipped — to find their rhythm in an untethered world.

It’s not just here. This summer, the U.S. government (the nation’s largest tenant) officially embraced “work from anywhere” by signing a contract with flex-space marketplace LiquidSpace to allow employees to “to occupy only the space that is needed while improving employee productivity, reducing carbon footprints, supporting workplace diversity.”

Of all the things I heard when speaking to teams and leaders over the past 18 months about the topic, perhaps the best line came from a member at KWENCH who had struggled with both remote work and traditional offices at times.

“I DO want to go back to an office. Not to be watched … but to be seen.”  Jim Hayhurst is a trusted advisor to purpose-driven organizations and leaders.

He is currently active in six companies and social impact projects that elevate Victoria’s reputation as a hub of innovation, collaboration and big thinking.

50 DOUGLAS

HUMAN RESOURCES

BY SHYLA WARNER

Could the future of work be bossless?

Self-managed organizations are challenging traditional workplace structures and hierarchies in a redistribution of power that gives employees autonomy over their work.

W

hat if we could work in organizations that were free of the pathologies most of us accept as unavoidable side effects of a workplace? Things such as bureaucracy, stress and burnout, apathy, toxic leadership and workplace politics. What if we didn’t feel the need to balance our work lives and personal lives because both were deeply fulfilling?

This is exactly the kind of workplace a growing number of organizations — in fields as varied as health care, banking, nonprofit, automotive and education — have been creating. Challenging everything we know about business management, these organizations give their employees complete autonomy over their work. Although power isn’t spread evenly throughout the organization, everyone is powerful in these ecosystem-like communities.

With an inspiring organizational purpose, self-management practices and transparency, these organizations avoid the potential chaos and indecision that could result from such a management model and ultimately enjoy the success that flows from a group of inspired people.

Inspired by Purpose A clear sense of purpose is essential and is a strategy supported by research. When Google commissioned a study to determine what made some teams so much stronger than others, having a clear purpose was one of the differentiators.

To emphasize its importance, some selfmanaged organizations reserve a chair at all meetings to represent the organization’s purpose. At any point during a meeting, participants can move into the empty chair and become the voice of the organization.

Self-managed organizations believe that if they continually work toward their purpose, customer loyalty (and money) will follow.

Without management, employees look to the organization’s purpose for direction.

Everything, from deciding whether to work with a client to creating a new role, must be

in alignment with the overarching purpose.

How these organizations approach roles, accountabilities and overall structure varies, though most of them strive to create workplaces that encourage adaptivity.

In many cases, this means focusing the organizational structure around the periphery of the organization, which is closest to customers and clients. Being able to learn, respond and change course quickly is viewed as a key to success.

Trusted to Do the Right Thing Operating with the belief that people are inherently good and can be trusted to do the right thing, these organizations don’t rely on managers to control, direct and decide the actions of others. Providing staff with communications training ensures people have the necessary tools to operate successfully in a self-managed workplace. Many companies also provide access to coaches, should teams find themselves unable to solve an internal conflict.

Equipped with a clear understanding of the organization’s reason for being, who they serve and what success looks like, employees are free to manage themselves and their work. This also means that anyone in the organization can make a decision, so long as they first seek feedback from colleagues who will be affected by the decision and those with more experience.

Employees are expected to take the time to seriously consider the feedback they receive, while recognizing that they don’t have to follow every piece of advice. It’s important

Without management, employees look to the organization’s purpose for direction. Everything, from deciding whether to work with a client to creating a new role, must be in alignment with the overarching purpose.

HOW TO GIVE MORE AUTONOMY TO YOUR TEAM

1

2

Create a meaningful and inspirational organization.

Reorganize meeting strategies with your team.

3

4

Proactively communicate through numeric tools.

Always be open and transparent with your team.

to note that even the owners of these organizations follow this process of decisionmaking. In doing so, they increase information flow and reduce the risk of making a poor decision, while still ensuring that ideas don’t become watered down through a democratic process. Self-managed companies tolerate and even encourage risks that get them closer to their overall purpose.

Information is for Sharing Using intranet sites or platforms such as Slack and MS Teams, information is organized so that it is easy to share and locate. Instead of being inundated with emails “pushing” information, employees are empowered to “pull” the information they require.

Everyone is entrusted with everything from their organization’s financials to employee salaries. In some cases employees use this information, along with an employee-led review panel, to set their own wages.

Organizations that have tested this management model have found the positive results they have experienced far outweigh any challenges they encounter. They no longer carry the organizational debt associated with bureaucracy and its policies built on distrust. Employees continue to prove that, on the whole, people want to do good work and contribute to something meaningful.

Despite the extraordinary results that many of these organizations are enjoying, this model won’t be the right fit for everyone. For those organizations that aren’t ready to dive into self-management, but would like to enjoy some of the benefits of this model, consider: ▶ Creating (and frequently sharing) a meaningful and inspiring organizational purpose. Make this purpose clear during your hiring process so that you employ people who are aligned with, and motivated by, what your organization is working to achieve. ▶ Canceling all internal meetings for two weeks, and then working as a team to decide which ones are necessary and which are contributing to your organizational debt. ▶ Sharing as much information as possible on a platform such as Slack or MS Teams.

Encourage others to do the same. ▶ Hosting a regular “ask me anything” session with your team in the spirit of encouraging transparency.

There has never been a better time to build a workplace ecosystem rich in engagement, loyalty, innovation and purpose.

Shyla Warner is the founder of Warner Consulting and advises small business owners and leaders on how to build and maintain highly engaged and inspired workplaces.

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DOUGLAS 51

SUSTAINABILITY

BY JILL DOUCETTE

How to Create a Decarbonization Strategy Building climate action into your operations and investment plans is not only a shared responsibility but a prudent business strategy. These steps can help your company reduce its carbon footprint and work toward a net negative future.

T

he latest reports on the state of the climate from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) paints a stark picture of planetary impacts of global warming if we continue on the current trajectory. To meet our national targets for emissions reduction, governments are looking at stronger regulations. At the same time, institutional purchasers, investors, consumers and employees are demanding more transparency and action from the business community.

Building climate action into your operations and investment plans is not only a shared responsibility but a prudent business strategy, as low-carbon operations will become a new business imperative.

A decarbonization strategy investigates approaches to reduce the carbon footprint of a business or equity portfolio without materially impacting performance. These include mechanisms to optimize through efficiency gains, switching to renewable fuels and energy, and minimizing waste and purchasing impacts.

The decarbonization pathway starts with assessing key emission sources: ▶ Scope 1: Direct emissions controlled by the company Common examples are company-owned vehicles, natural gas, propane and other fuels. ▶ Scope 2: Purchased electricity Fortunately, B.C. has a low-carbon intensity grid at 18.6 gCO2e/kWh (NIR, 2019) compared to the average emissions from electricity in Alberta at 620 gCO2e/kWh (NIR, 2019), due to the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy.

For most businesses in B.C., electricity will not be a large source of carbon; however, the UN Sustainable Development Goals call for dramatic energy efficiency upgrades in order to meet our future power needs, including electric vehicles. ▶ Scope 3: Indirect emissions from other sources the business does not directly control or own Common examples are emissions from landfill waste, flights and hotel stays, staff commuting and supplier deliveries.

You may choose to use an online carbon

THE DECARBONIZATION PATHWAY AVOIDED EMISSIONS

▶ 30 to 70% reduction through design and operation choices.

REMAINING EMISSIONS

▶ Carbon offsets to reach neutral carbon.

▶ Carbon sinks to reach net negative carbon.

NET NEGATIVE

CURRENT STATE

52 DOUGLAS

CARBON NEUTRAL POINT

ZERO CARBON POINT

Source: Synergy Enterprises

calculator or conduct a carbon footprint assessment to determine your total annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This will create a baseline year from which you can set goals, benchmark your performance as a company and celebrate achievements.

Reducing Your Emissions Once you understand your emissions profile, the second (and most important) step is to map your opportunities for reducing emissions. In a decarbonization strategy, we usually aim to reduce emissions by 30-70 per cent over a five to 10 year period.

Avoidable emissions can vary greatly.

For example, the main emission source of a helicopter company is fuel, and electric or hydrogen fuel cell helicopters are still years away from commercial operation. A restaurant’s main emission sources will usually be waste, natural gas and staff commuting — alternative practices and technologies exist to reduce or minimize these emission sources.

As you build your list of solutions you can add data for the appropriate timeline, associated costs and emission reduction potential. You can then compare solutions and look to prioritize actions that will reduce the greatest amount of annual emissions with the lowest capital investment.

You may also look to prioritize emissions that generate strong operational cost savings.

Top cost-saving initiatives include energy efficiency upgrades, water efficiency, reducing waste generation, introducing electric vehicles or e-bikes into fleets and reducing unnecessary travel or idling time.

Companies may choose to start purchasing offsets and become a carbonneutral company at any point along their decarbonization journey. We see this as a bridging solution — being “zero carbon” is not always viable immediately. Many businesses still want to take responsibility for their emissions by investing in emission reduction projects.

In purchasing carbon offsets, look for

verified, credible and transparent offsets that fit your values. Look for standards such as CCB, REDD+, VSC and GOLD Standard.

As a business continues along the decarbonization journey, the offset costs will gradually decrease over time. Though offsets have received warranted criticism, it is a critical financial tool to invest in emission reduction projects that do not generate a return on investment. Without the offset market, hundreds of renewable energy and conservation projects would not happen.

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Achieving Net Negative Some companies are making commitments to be net negative and draw more carbon from the atmosphere than they emit.

There are two ways to achieve this. The first is to invest more in carbon offsets than you produce on an annual basis. The second is to look at optimizing carbon sinks — a long-term mechanism for storing carbon.

Some businesses, such as farms, can invest in new techniques to maximize carbon sequestration and become net negative, or even sell carbon credits. Other examples of carbon sinks are seagrasses and seaweeds (like Cascadia Seaweed, profiled on page 9), healthy forests, wetlands and bogs, and non-natural carbon sinks such as mechanical carbon sequestration.

I believe that one of the most promising opportunities to advance climate action and to protect biodiversity is to look to carbon sinks as a mechanism for the regeneration of ecosystems, sponsored by companies who aim to become net negative.

As we approach a new year, consider starting your decarbonization strategy and identify your short-term and long-term solutions. Engage your team in the process to bring in different perspectives and start a climate action team within your organization.

The year 2022 will mark a new economic era. We have an opportunity to rethink our businesses and build back better. Maybe you will introduce your first electric vehicle into your company fleet, cut your waste or upgrade your old natural gas hot water heater with an electric on-demand system.

As you make progress, you can take bigger leaps. Maybe your business can even become net negative before 2030. Using climate action as a decision-making lens will allow your business to become a better agent for the economy of the future, and your employees, investors and the planet will thank you for it.  Jill Doucette is the Founder and CEO of Synergy Enterprises, working with leading businesses to decarbonize their operations. She is an author, speaker and director of the Synergy Foundation.

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POINT OF VIEW

IT TAKES TWO In October, Daisy and Adam Orser opened the much-anticipated second The Root Cellar in Cook Street Village. The couple had worked together for over a decade before opening first Root Cellar at McKenzie Corner in 2008.

That time gave them “the confidence that our relationship wouldn’t combust when we opened our own store,” says Daisy.

How do you divide your work?

We work to our strengths, which we learned in our prior careers are very complimentary — I think that’s key. Adam oversees operations, buying, human resources, recipe development and leadership. I oversee marketing, public relations, community involvement and culture. We both contribute to business growth and development.

We joke that he bakes the cake and I ice it, but at the end of the day, we are each focusing on what we love and what we’re best at, which is what makes it work.

How do you manage the conversations (about work) outside of work?

This can be hard. We try valiantly to do the “no shop talk in bed,” but we do allow it at the dinner table, as we feel strongly that there is huge opportunity for our three sons (ages 14 and 17 … our 23-year-old is out of the nest, but works full time as a procurement manager for The Root Cellar) to learn from those discussions.

It can be hard to shake things when you’ve had a bad day, and the one person who understands is the one pouring your glass of wine. We set boundaries and have both done a lot of communication skill development, so for the most part we keep it in check. There is also a lot of positive shop talk that happens outside of work, and cutting that off seems silly — you want to talk about what lights you up with your person, and we are very lucky that for the most part, that’s what work is — something that brings us joy.

54 DOUGLAS

MICHELLE PROCTOR

What are the benefits of working together?

They are tremendous. We each know that we have someone who understands what we’re going through on the shitty days and who appreciates the triumphs and nuances of the good days. We each have an absolutely honest and trustworthy sounding board, support person, cheerleader and sometimes reality-checker and bubble-burster.

It sounds light, but these last two are things that many people don’t have in top positions in companies and it’s invaluable — it keeps us humble, sincere and focused on the right things.

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DOUGLAS 55