In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

CANADIAN DESIGNS FOR SUSTAINABILITY

In Business, May/June, 2004, Vol. 26, No. 3, p. 14

Small and medium sized enterprises in Canada show what it takes to succeed in diverse fields and create the infrastructure for green industries.

Kevin McKague

WHEN MANY of our international neighbors think about Canada, often it is the images of mountains, nature and wide open spaces that come to mind. Prompting for thoughts on Canadian business may identify lumber or mining companies. Canadian design, you ask? If you're lucky you might get someone mentioning the ski-doo or kayak as examples. But if you look closely at Canada today, you'll see that many leading businesses and entrepreneurs are changing the way they achieve competitive advantage in the rapidly transforming global economy.
In a recent survey by York University in Toronto, nine out of ten respondents said that Canadian businesses should make environmental and corporate social responsibility a top priority and use leadership in these areas as an international competitive strategy. A recent publication of case studies documents how a new generation of Canadian entrepreneurs and Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) are responding to this domestic market demand and international opportunity by designing innovative new products, services and business models that incorporate the principles of sustainable business and sustainable design.
This Design for Sustainability research partnership was initiated in the spring of 2003 by a network of partners including the Business and Sustainability Program at the Schulich School of Business at York University, the Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability, the Design Exchange, Pollution Probe, Canadian Business for Social Responsibility, Five Winds International and Natural Resources Canada. Supported by the partners, ten company case studies were completed by 15 MBAs and Masters of Environmental Studies students at York University in 2003 as part of a specially organized independent course of study. The course was supported by workshops, lectures, company presentations and the development of a Design for Sustainability How-to Tool Kit. The cases were drawn from a variety of sectors from across the country. The ten cases were published in February 2004 by the Design Exchange and disseminated through the partners and other business and sustainability networks across Canada and internationally.
A review of the ten Design for Sustainability case studies found that the SMEs profiled used a number of sustainability concepts and tools including design for environment, ecoefficiency, life cycle assessment, green procurement, environmental management systems and ecolabelling to put their ideas into practice. What follows are brief summaries of four of the companies profiled in the publication: Westport Innovations, Air Quality Solutions, Wildflower Farm, and reSource Rethinking Building.
WESTPORT INNOVATIONS
With a patented engine design combining the fuel efficiency and power of diesel engines with the environmental advantages of clean burning gaseous fuels, Westport Innovations - a Vancouver-based fuel technologies company - is redesigning engines that offer both superior performance and reduced environmental impact. Westport designs fuel injectors that allow diesel engines to run on low emission gaseous fuels including natural gas and hydrogen. The promise of its technology developments had led to a joint venture with Cummins Diesel as well as collaborations with Ford, BMW and a number of other auto makers.
Westport is actively targeting natural gas engine markets not currently being aggressively pursued by other larger diesel engine manufacturers. Jurisdictions with mandated lower emissions standards are attractive because it is more difficult for manufacturers of conventional diesel engines to compete there. In some markets, strict environmental legislation is combined with incentives for cleaner technologies. Abundant natural gas and a growing transportation sector are two other factors which favor market entry by Westport. In the U.S., California is an attractive market, as is Washington State where Cummins Westport products are gaining ground.
There is also enormous potential for Westport's products in newly emerging and developing country markets because these countries often have pollution and mass transportation challenges but also abundant supplies of natural gas. These markets include over four billion people and are the areas of future population and market growth. As Ian Scott of Westport observes: “Seven of the world's ten largest cities are in the emerging economies of China, India, Mexico, Brazil and Bangladesh. All five countries have serious air pollution concerns. All five also have abundant natural gas supplies. By powering commercial transportation with clean natural gas, these nations are able to reduce air emissions, reduce energy security risk and increase income per capita by freeing up domestic oil production for hard currency sales in international markets. The average citizen can realize significant social, environmental and economic benefits.” Westport is actively pursuing contracts in developing countries as well as North American markets to power the buses and trucks of the future.
AIR QUALITY SOLUTIONS
Dr. Alan Darlington, a professor and research scientist at the University of Guelph, stands proudly beside his booth at Toronto's fashionable interior design show. Darlington never thought his career as a world expert in air filtration would lead him here. But as President and CEO of the two-year-old company, Air Quality Solutions (AQS), he has a product that fits right into interior design's new thinking about greening the corporate landscape. The product is a botanical biofilter, or Biowall, modeled on the principles of nature.
The technology that Air Quality Solutions is marketing can be used as an alternative or supplement to an existing ventilation system. Instead of introducing outdoor air to replace stale indoor air, the AQS biofilter rejuvenates, oxygenates and cleans the indoor air so it can be recirculated and used over and over again. Because the air does not have to be heated or cooled, the biowall saves energy, reduces energy costs for users and reduces greenhouse gas emissions to the environment.
Botanical biofiltration of indoor air is based on the principles of phytoremediation, which uses the natural ability of plants to break down and absorb pollutants.
Operation of the biofilter is relatively simple. Fans draw air from the surrounding space into wet, moss-covered biomass layers that make up the surface of the biofilter. As the airborne contaminates flow over the wet biomass, they are trapped by the plants. Although green plants are involved in the removal of some pollutants, most of the degradation is microbial in origin.
The system is effective at significantly reducing amounts of volatile organic compounds. As Darlington notes, “The key to success is finding the right balance of life forms for each installation; this is one of the main challenges from a design perspective. Once that is achieved, a system like this can take care of itself.”
WILDFLOWER FARM
Imagine the corporate campus for a Fortune 500 company surrounded - not with an immaculately manicured lawn - but with native flowers and natural grasses growing wild. Wildflower Farm, a unique sustainable landscape design business and native species nursery, has helped IBM and Toyota to install exactly this kind of natural environment around their Canadian offices. Wildflower Farm's corporate clients benefit from radically reduced costs for maintenance and upkeep, the elimination of pesticides, and a strong symbolic message to their employees and customers about how they are positioning themselves with respect to environmental issues.
Wildflower Farm was founded in 1988 by a pair of self-trained Toronto-area horticulturalists, husband and wife team Miriam Goldberger and Paul Jenkins. Since then, the business has flourished as a dynamic small enterprise providing consulting, landscape design, and installation, and selling a wide variety of wild flowers and native grasses from their web site and farm. Their web site offers one of the most comprehensive selections of native species and wildflowers in North America. Their nontraditional garden products are cost-effective and require little maintenance. The balance between aesthetic and environmental appeal is a strong selling proposition.
Wildflower Farm is working with landscape architects and other professionals as well as urban homeowners, corporations and other institutions to evolve a new model of ecologically-sound landscape design. One of Wildflower Farm's most popular products is a drought-tolerant, low maintenance mix of fescue turf grasses, branded as the Eco-lawn. Selling all over North America as the ultimate low maintenance lawn, the Eco-lawn, describes Goldberger, “produces a relaxed lawn look, a beautiful aesthetic.”
Despite their lack of formal training, the owners have a strong business sense, innovative marketing skills and a practical knowledge of gardening and landscape design. A key driving force behind the rapid growth of their business has been the public's growing concern with lawn and garden pesticides and a desire to seek out a natural alternative.
RESOURCE RETHINKING BUILDING
As the 1990s came to a close in Vancouver, British Columbia, an architect and a developer joined forces to create a company that would respond to and help shape the emerging sustainable architecture industry in Canada. The company they formed, reSource Rethinking Building, works with developers and individual home owners to create dwellings that are more ecoefficient and healthy, yet also affordable for individuals and profitable for the developers involved.
Heather Tremain and Robert Brown formed reSource Rethinking Building to help design sustainable and life-enhancing buildings. Brown brought with him years of experience as a developer and commercial leasing agent. Tremain, while completing her Masters in Architecture, was working as cocreator and content producer for the television show “Healthy Home”. ReSource Rethinking Building employs contractors, architects, engineers, landscape architects and facilitators on contract, to form a team to consult with clients on the options available to develop their environmentally sustainable home.
Tremain notes that reSource's goal is not to push its clients to adopt all the possible green design elements. Rather, she says, their key strength as consultants is the fact that they do not always try to be cutting edge in terms of meeting their ecoefficiency goals. Instead they help their clients to take the next important step towards green design. This has secured them more contracts as reSource is seen as a developer-friendly organization, rather than one that takes an all-or-nothing approach.
A COLLECTION OF CASES
Each of the descriptions above is a snapshot of the larger two-page cases that are included in the Design for Sustainability publication. Other cases include: GrassRoots, Toronto's “Green General Store”; Scanwood Canada, a supplier of board furniture to IKEA; office furniture makers Nienkamper, Teknion and Knoll; Dunlop Architects and Halsall Associates Engineers who collaborated on the sustainable design of the University of Toronto's new Student Centre; Creative Corrugate, maker of 100 percent recyclable children's playhouses; and Happy Planet Foods, Canada's foremost bottler of high-quality organic juices.
Building on the success of the published cases and related public presentations and other activities, the Design for Sustainability partnership plans to expand the program in 2004 to include new case studies from a wider variety of industry sectors. Currently, a group of 20 MBAs and Masters of Environmental Studies students are working on an additional batch of case studies that will be published in the spring of 2005. Further workshops, seminars and the development of a web site are also planned.
In addition to these activities, the Design for Sustainability partnership is working towards long-term goals such as the establishment of a Centre of Excellence for Design and partnerships with the Design Research Institute for Canada (being developed by York University) and the Design Industry Advisory Committee (a group representing professional designers in six design disciplines in Ontario).
SHIFTING MARKETS AND REBRANDING CANADA
York University research identified that 58 percent of Canadian businesses and government representatives surveyed believed that Canadian companies would sell more outside North American markets if they have a stronger image for social and environmental sustainability.
The Design for Sustainability case studies were chosen to help shift the market - entrepreneurs, governments, consumers - towards more socially and environmentally sustainable practices. The stories of Canadian leadership in sustainable business and sustainable design can also help create a new international image for Canada - as one where Canadian enterprise and Canadian goods and services are known more for their innovation and excellence with respect to the environment, the economy and social issues.

Kevin McKague is cocoordinator of the Design for Sustainability partnership and organizer of the York University case writing course. Copies of the Design for Sustainability publication of ten case studies are CDN$15 and are available by contacting John Sobol, Director of Publications at The Design Exchange john@dx.org. You can also visit the Design Exchange website at www.dx.org/sustainable_home.html. For further information on the Design for Sustainability partnership, current and future activities or Canadian case studies, contact McKague at kmckague@schulich.yorku.ca.