key messages
With a goal of demonstrating that a regional shopping centre can embrace principles in sustainability, Park Royal has launched Sustainability in Action. Through this broad initiative, we are improving our operations, introducing an operational pilot program with our retail partners to help them adopt sustainable practices, and engaging in customer education and community programs.
Sustainability in Action’s operational changes include energy efficiency improvements, reduced water use, better recycling and waste management programs, switching to alternative fuel in our service vehicles, using environmentally-responsible cleaning products and working with suppliers that use sustainable practices in their operations.
To encourage Park Royal shoppers to adopt more sustainable practices when they shop and at home, Sustainability in Action includes a education component, where shoppers can learn more about this initiative and take inspiration from it.
In addition to addressing environmental impact, sustainability includes looking at how we operate and collaborate in the community. Sustainability in Action includes a community outreach and engagement strategy that will see Park Royal taking leadership and participating in socially-and environmentally-responsible community initiatives.
We want to create a healthy and enjoyable work environment for our employees, so Sustainability in Action includes providing Park Royal staff with comfortable, breathable new uniforms, environmentally safe and non-toxic cleaning products, and incentives to use transit to travel to and from work. We are also encouraging them to provide input and new ideas of how we can improve our operations even more.
Sustainability in Action will be even more successful when Park Royal tenants also get behind it. That’s why we’ve created an operational pilot program designed for small- and medium-sized retailers looking to make a real commitment to “going green”. It helps them run a profitable business that embraces social and environmental values, waste less and reduce costs, and gain visibility for their green initiatives.
key questions and answers
Q: What is Sustainability in Action?
Sustainability in Action is Park Royal’s commitment to taking measurable, concrete action toward reducing our environmental impact. It’s a broad initiative that includes adopting new operational practices, customer education and community outreach, and an operational pilot program that gets our retail partners involved in sustainability.
Q: Why is Park Royal implementing Sustainability in Action?
Park Royal Shopping Centre is committed to encouraging retail responsibility and everyday sustainability – ensuring that we create a better place to shop by integrating green practices in our operations, for our tenants, employees and customers.
Q: What’s involved in Sustainability in Action?
Sustainability in Action is a broad strategy. It includes an education component for Park Royal shoppers to inspire them to make more environmentally-conscious choices when they shop and at home, an operational pilot program to help retailers become more sustainable and offer green products and services, an outreach program where we’ll connect more deeply with the surrounding community, an employee program that helps them adopt more sustainable practices at work and at home, and some significant changes to our operations. Together these initiatives will help Park Royal meet its goal of reducing our environmental impact.
Q: What are the benefits of Sustainability in Action to Park Royal shoppers?
Sustainability in Action will provide Park Royal shoppers with a healthier, more enjoyable shopping centre environment, as well as educational resources that will help them make more sustainable shopping choices and lifestyle decisions at home. Merchants participating in our pilot program will also offer Park Royal shoppers additional sustainable product and service options.
Q: Is this just a greenwashing exercise or are you really committed to sustainability?
Park Royal has spent the past sixteen months developing this strategy, and we have made some real and significant changes to our operations. For example, we are renovating all public washrooms to include low-flow toilets to reduce water use, we’ve replaced incandescent light bulbs for more energy-efficient compact fluorescents, are running our service vehicles on alternative fuels, changed the cleaning products our janitorial staff uses to products that are environmental safe, and we’ve expanded our recycling programs to reduce waste, and developed a program to help our retailers adopt more sustainable practices in their operations. These are just a few examples of our ongoing initiatives.
Q: Isn’t this contradictory? Promoting sustainability while also encouraging consumerism?
People are becoming more aware of the impacts of their actions and personal choices, including how and where they shop and what they purchase. It is our intent to continue to operate our core business, retail, in an economically prudent manner while having regard for the environment and the community. As a large regional shopping centre, we feel it is our responsibility – to our customers, to our community and to the environment – to implement Sustainability in Action. By doing this, we’re showing leadership in the Canadian retail sector by taking concrete steps toward reducing our environmental impact, while giving our employees a healthier place to work, and our customers more sustainable choices. While we have made positive steps we realize that we still have a long way to go on our journey to sustainability.
Q: What are the long term plans for Sustainability in Action?
The long term plans for Sustainability in Action include ongoing customer education and engagement, community dialogue to see how we can partner with other groups on the North Shore around sustainability issues, continually evaluating our operations to identify and implement greener practices, and signing on more Park Royal retail partners to our pilot program.
Q: How are you getting Park Royal shoppers involved?
We’ve built an education component into Sustainability in Action, which involves a number of activities. The primary way to learn more is at a central information kiosk that is situated at the Centre Court. Our goal is to inspire Park Royal shoppers to take what they learn at the shopping centre, and make more sustainable lifestyle choices at home. Once at home customers can also view the Sustainability in Action website for a deeper level of content.
Q: How are Park Royal retailers getting involved?
As part of Sustainability in Action, we have developed an operational pilot program designed for small- and medium-sized retailers looking to make a real commitment to “going green”. It helps them run a profitable business that embraces social and environmental values, waste less and reduce costs and gain visibility for their green initiatives.
Q. What is Park Royal doing in terms of community outreach?
Park Royal has a very close connection with the North Shore community. In 2007 Park Royal worked with 52 community groups and raised a cumulative total of over $130,000. In addition to fundraising within the centre, Park Royal also offers mall space for non profit group awareness and displays of everything from local dance groups to art displays. There are also significant contributions that Park Royal makes from a corporate standpoint donations to the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation, Family Services of the North Shore, North Shore Crisis Services Society, the West Vancouver Library, and many others.
