Published December 07, 2010 by Adelaide Z
Walking in the main lobby of our building one day I noticed some new signage on my way to the elevators. Our building was BOMA Best certified.
The BOMA Best (Building Environmental Standards) initiative is Canada’s leading environmental certification program for commercial buildings and Vigilant Futures’ is fortunate enough to have its headquarters in a BOMA Best certified building. (http://www.bomabest.com/)
Our building was certified in June this past year after several vigorous steps and tests. Vigilant retro-fitted its office space in 2009 to not only make the space more contemporary, but to include as many green design elements as possible.
The BOMA Best website lists many buildings in the Montreal area as being certified and Yahoo took note a few weeks ago naming Montreal the greenest city in Canada thanks to our many open-air markets that sell local produce and more notably, the BIXI system Vigilant Futures so proudly sponsors.
Check out Yahoo’s top 10 greenest cities list: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/yahoocanada/101110/canada/the_world_s_greenest_cities
Published September 27, 2010 by Adelaide Z
Saturday was a big day for the Aabid-Ezzerouali family. They finally got the keys to their new home their neighbours, local companies, and random volunteers built over this past year. They are the first Montreal family to move into a LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) home built by Habitat for Humanity Montreal. The project proves one can be environmenally friendly while on a tight budget.
The day was filled with festivities, starting with the key-giving ceremony and followed with a tour of the home, something Vigilant was very proud to partake in as a sponsor. Habitat also hosted a family day in Gadbois Park with plenty of food and drink, and lots of activities for kids.
Vigilant employees also volunteered their time to help with the construction of the home and it proved so popular a volunteering activity, we’re doing it again in a few weeks!
Published September 22, 2010 by Adelaide Z
Paris is experimenting with a uniquely Italian idea to provide both flat and sparkling water from its public water fountains. They city hopes to wean Parisians from their plastic water-bottle habit and promote tap water since the country invests so much in maintaining the high quality.
The French consume about 40 gallons of bottled water per person each year, one of the highest per capita amounts not only in Europe, but also in the world. Read more from the New York Times article.
Published June 01, 2010 by Adelaide Z
According to Water.org nearly 1 billion people don’t have access to clean drinking water. Despite our access to free, clean drinking water, North Americans still prefer bottled water. The United Nations estimates there are 46,000 pieces of plastic in every square mile of ocean and approximately 80% of this plastic debris originates from land. North Americans seem to be the worst culprits as over the last few decades, we’ve turned away from our kitchen tap to the refrigerator for a 500 ml bottle to quench our thirst.
Well, not at Vigilant Futures, not anymore!
Back in January we began an awareness campaign to draw attention to the number of plastic water bottles we were going through every day. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what better image for everyone to gaze upon than the actual plastic bottles consumed?
Water bottle collection
Although we had always recycled every bottle used, we started a collection in each department where every employee was asked to place all their empty bottles in designated bags for 2 ½ months. The bags were quickly filling up and we needed additional storage for the growing number of bags!
During World Water Week we unveiled the bags filled with empty plastic water bottles to all employees. Bag by bag, we brought out the bottles for all to see. Shocked faces and surprised gasps could be heard as over 20 large blue bags were brought and piled one on top of the other in our kitchen. What followed was a two-day vote where every employee was given the chance to guess how many bottles Vigilant had gone through during the collection from of January 29 to April 22.
The result? We had gone through a massive total of 3, 384 plastic water bottles! Clearly, this was a wakeup call for us all. All were ready and willing to take on the challenge of ridding our office of all plastic bottles and starting a much greener, healthier way of drinking this precious source of life!
Today, our company is officially a plastic bottle-free zone. Each employee got a Vigilant-branded SIGG™ bottle and water filtration units were installed in every department and conference room. Thanks to all Vigilant employees for your efforts and making the transition to a water-bottle free office easy.
To read more about the impact of plastic on our oceans, please read Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans.
