The Guelph Chamber of Commerce, University of Guelph, and City of Guelph will be holding the third annual Guelph Sustainable Solutions workshop on May 26th.
Sustainability resolves the conflict between the various competing goals, balancing the pursuit of economic prosperity, environmental quality and social / cultural equity. This is often referred to as the triple bottom line or ‘People, Planet, and Profit’.
Triple bottom line accounting means expanding the traditional reporting framework to take into account ecological and social performance in addition to financial performance. Keeping the 3 pillars in balance is what many businesses and organizations in Guelph are working toward. Excerpts from our joint statement of sustainability are below:
“Collaboration, cooperation, and commitment are essential and possible. The whole community has a stake in sustainability. Citizens, businesses, governments, not-for-profit organizations, and educators must all work together with mutual trust, a shared sense of purpose, and a willingness to change.
Sustainability is everyone’s business and is good for business. Social, environmental and economic sustainability improves profitability, productivity, and competitiveness, and attracts talent and investment. We can’t afford to be unsustainable.
We will…
Position our community/organization to prosper. We will strive to provide good opportunities for our people by encouraging innovation, entrepreneurship, and diversification.
Support the members of our community/organization. We will promote health, safety, wellness, inclusion, education and training.
Use resources wisely and minimize waste. Our community will show leadership in energy and water conservation, waste reduction, the protection of natural areas and farmland, and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Share what we know. As champions for sustainability in our community we will create networks to share our experiences and resources.
Measure our progress. We will develop metrics that are relevant to our own business activities, and report on our contributions to these sustainability measures.”
In addition to the Sustainable Solutions workshop, our community dialogue in 2010 included three workshops on the new technology economy, conservation and waste reduction, and building a better planet. We have created a website to collect your stories of sustainability, www.sustainabilityguelph.ca: so “Count Yourself In” and enter your success story onto our community site. More work has been done in 2011, leading up to our workshop on May 26th , 8am to noon, at the University of Guelph Rozanski Hall. To register for this event please visit www.guelphchamber.com.
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