Retail

Staples Canada – Making Eco…Easy

Challenge

Our goal/challenge was internal and external recognition of Eco Easy as our commitment to the environment. It was to be our mantra, and more importantly, it was to make our commitments easy to understand, easy to see, easy to participate in, and easy to measure.

We needed to define what environment meant to Staples in Canada. The definition needed to form the foundation of an action plan and it needed to be something that would resonate with our customers and associates. We needed to understand what moves us to be better and to do better. Executive commitment to this initiative was critical if we wanted to make a noticeable difference on a national scale.

We needed establish a cross functional group that could meet and discuss current initiatives, legislation, potential program ideas and who had the ability to implement change. We needed to communicate clearly, frequently, and in the appropriate format internally and externally. We need to look at what physical space we allocated to programs, what tools we provided to make execution or participation easy. Consistency in our communication was imperative as was the constant connection to the brand eco easy.

We needed to understand the complexities of what we were trying to accomplish and to stay focused on what we could change and how we could motivate change through education and also by connecting environmental sustainability with financial sustainability. We needed to be open to working with partners, consultants, government, NGOs, and ENGOs to build viable programs.

Strategy

Committee

In early 2009, a cross-functional team was formally established. This team, aptly named the Eco Easy Committee, was scheduled to meet quarterly and it consisted of representation from all departments within the Canadian organization. The committee was to be chaired by the VP or Merchandising and the Manager of Environmental Services to ensure products and services were equally represented. One of the first tasks of the group was to determine what environment represented to Staples. We determined our focus would be as follows:

Environmentally preferable products
Easy Recycling
Energy Efficiency
Education and Awareness.

This would be our key message and all initiatives would fall under one of the four main categories.

Internal/Store Communications

After our first eco easy meeting it was clear that many were working on great initiatives but few were aware, even within the same office. If people within the same building were not aware then the store managers and associates definitely did not know what environment meant to Staples. This created a great communications challenge. How do you engage over 15,000 people?

First task was to create a dedicated place on our intranet where all documents pertaining to environment would be housed, all documents had to be branded eco easy and have the same look and feel so they would be easily recognizable.

Second task was to create a high level overview of what moves us to be responsible, what programs we have in place, and what we are investigating. This overview was originally released as Staples Environment Fact Sheet, but was re-named mid year to Eco Easy at a Glance.

Third was to use existing communication channels to reach our associates; we made a commitment to include content whenever possible and to ensure we had prominent features during times like earth hour, earth day, etc. We integrated content into quarterly stake meetings as well as our annual conference.

Internal communications is a pivotal piece and one that requires a constant commitment, if we are to keep the message alive and our associates engaged in the belief that we can make a difference. External Communications Very similar to internal, we needed a dedicated page on the Staples internet site staples.ca/environment. Eco Easy at a Glance was designed to be used both internally and externally.

Partnerships

We realized that there are many who have preceded us on similar journeys and that to be successful we could learn from others. We shared experiences with business partners, joined retail groups, attended stewardship conferences, and liaised with our counterparts in the US.

Earth cycle planning (ecp)

In the fall of 2008 we had engaged a consulting company to assist with our waste management program, particularly MoE compliance in Ontario. In 2009 we expanded that relationship to make earth cycle planning (ecp) our national environmental consultant. The role of ecp was to manage our existing portfolio, report quarterly, investigate additional diversion opportunities, assist with internal communications, we a point of contact for store managers, assist with sourcing process, look for opportunities to engage associates. They became a member of the extended Staples family and were considered a critical participant in the cross functional meetings.

Tools

When we looked at the space dedicated to recycling in stores it was not always consistent or highly visible. There were small fixtures in various places in the store and while they were adjacent to the product for re-sale it did not make a visible statement to customers or associates about our commitments. One of the items we felt was important was to design and launch our own recycling fixture both for the sales floor and for the lunchrooms in our stores.

The fixtures for the sales floor had to be mobile, easy to clean, easy to use and highly visible. Merchandising, Fixture Group, Signage, Facility Services worked together to create a fixture that was included in our promotional planner, was clearly signed and again made it obvious to all the we were committed to recycling. We launched the fixture at our annual conference last April and began to roll out as of April 22nd 2009. Programs We need to understand our program capabilities and build roll out plans once we had the necessary tools to execute set in place.

Result

Eco Easy Committee

Our committee has now grown to over 20 members, many of who asked if they could join because they were excited about the progress we were making. This is not meeting for the sake of meeting but rather a group of fiercely passionate individuals who are eager to roll up their sleeves and build our programs.

Internal/Store Communications

A dedicated portlet for Environment was launched in April 2009 all content was updated and branded eco easy and was available in French and English. Eco Easy at a Glance is updated quarterly and is used as an internal and external tool. There have been two videos produced and multiple articles in our newsletter, and inclusion in multiple podcasts. Internal awareness has never been greater. We had an event in our office to celebrate earth day 2009 including an internal video and a powerful presentation by WWF. A similar event was held in 2010 with table top presentations by our partners to educate associates on what we are doing and on what they can do personally.

External Communications

There have been multiple press releases, inclusion in two flyers, and radio spots focused on the environment. The biggest success has been our Million Cartridge Challenge. We put the call out to Canadians to help us divert 1 million ink/toner cartridges by Earth Day 2009 and it was an overwhelming success. We collected over 1.3 million cartridges and raised the bar to 2 Million by Earth Day 2010–a goal we also met and exceeded.

Partnerships

We consider ecp an extended member of the Staples family; they attend all eco easy committee meetings, special events, and help us understand the national landscape as it pertains to waste and recycling. Through their assistance we launched lunchroom room recycling in Ontario locations in 2009 (where end markets existed); launched e-cycling in Ontario and for the first time could produce a quarterly diversion report.

Tools

The fixtures were released to all stores between April and June 2009, to date we have had multiple customer requests to sell these fixtures. They are bright, well signed and easy to use. We launched with a detailed information kit that addressed questions at the local level.

Including a fixture for the lunchroom was a risk but we took it and many associates were very appreciative of our efforts albeit concerned about how to execute. Again with this fixture we launched quick reference guides to help stores understand how the fixtures worked and program rollout plans. We installed both the lunchroom and sales floor fixtures in our home office in mid 2009. We also looked at signage placement on the fixtures corporately and at retail and use these space to communicate key environmental messages.

Programs

1. Easy Recycling
All existing programs (ink/toner, cell, re-chargeable battery, mixed paper) were re-released via our newly designed intranet space in conjunction with the rollout of the new fixtures. We found that aside from ink/toner, no program was truly being executed nationally.

As a result, in 2009 we added 23 collection sites for re-chargeable battery and cell phone recycling, 16 additional sites for paper recycling. We collected over 7700lbs of batteries in 2009 which is a 38% increase from the year prior. In 2009 we added electronics recycling in 92 locations, making the total number of sites collecting e-waste 164. These sites collect 2132 metric tones of e-waste in 2009.

In 2009 we added cans/plastic/glass recycling in 107 locations; organic programs were put in place in 79 locations and are expanding to another 70 plus sites in 2010. In 2009 we implemented organics, cans/glass/plastic recycling at our Head Office.

2. Energy Conservation
We re-lamped over 80 locations with lower wattage light bulbs resulting in a reduction of over 4 million kilowatts and we worked with our contractors to ensure the end of life bulbs were properly recycled. 80 plus stores are being done in 2010 as well and we rolled out signage to make people aware that simply changing light bulbs can make a difference. We began to look at our HID stores and determined that fluorescent lighting would be a more responsible choice so we retrofitted our first location in 2009 in Markham, Ontario. This store is on track to reduce its kilowatt consumption by over 100,000kw. We have since completed 5 sites.

3. Environmentally Preferable products
STAPLES is committed to eliminating PVC from their own brand. As a result PVC was removed from new product specifications and has been eliminated from all North American shipments as of December 2009 with remaining markets to follow in 2010. We have asked our suppliers to remove PVC from their products. We transitioned our Head office to environmentally preferable janitorial and cafeteria supplies in 2009 and are rolling out the janitorial program to retail.

Overall Results

We now have numbers for all programs that we operate. The goal was to make eco easy recognizable and understandable. We have achieved recognition of the brand as more than just products. Our managers know where to look for environmental information and we have successfully integrated our commitments into the everyday language of Staples.

We have created awareness for our customers and through our website have given them the ability to see what we do and why we do it. Understanding that is a work in progress. I am very proud of how far we have come in a one year period however true understanding, engagement and participation require a constant commitment and the ability to adapt and be flexible in an area that is constantly evolving.

Did we make it easy, I believe we have, can we continue to make it easier, absolutely and I would be happy to share our story as it unfolds.