Canon Canada employees help to create green spaces and sustainable environments in their communities with paid time through its Branch Out volunteer initiative.Provided
Last June, Nazly Beltran-Alcazar was among a group of Canon Canada employees who got a little dirt under their fingernails while planting a rain garden at St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School in Brampton, Ont.
The rain garden, built alongside its legacy partner, the Credit Valley Conservation Foundation, as part of Canon’s annual Branch Out employee volunteering program, serves dual functions. Not only does it soak up and filter rainwater from the school’s rooftops and parking lots – which helps mitigate the risk of flooding at the school – but it also acts as a living classroom for students, who got to participate in planting it and learn about its impact on the local environment.
“There were projects there for the students to learn why it was built, what’s the purpose of it and how they can contribute as well to their community,” says Beltran-Alcazar, an environmental affairs associate specialist in the company’s Brampton head office and a member of the green team, a cross-departmental committee that develops and leads Canon’s environmental initiatives. “It was very physical work, but at the end of the day we see what we’ve achieved and it’s very rewarding.”
Lisa Guy, Canon’s senior director of talent, communications and business administration, who oversees environmental affairs at the company, says Branch Out is an extension of the company’s corporate philosophy of Kyosei, or living and working harmoniously together for the future.
In 2023, the company celebrated its 50th anniversary in Canada with a campaign called 50 Acts of Kyosei, in which the company gave back to the communities it operates in. Over the course of the year, employees volunteered with the Mossom Creek Hatchery in B.C., the Calgary Food Bank, Moisson Montréal and 360°kids in suburban Toronto, among many other local organizations. It also expanded its scholarship program, which provides support to environmental science students at York University and the University of British Columbia, to include the French-speaking University of Sherbrooke in Québec.
“We’ve always been cognizant of wanting to make sure that we are showing our environmental support to all the communities we live in, and Kyosei is part of that,” says Guy.
This year, the company is marking another major milestone: the 10th anniversary of the Branch Out program. “We want to make it a big year,” says Guy. The number of Branch Out events and partner organizations has steadily grown over the past decade, and between 40 and 50 per cent of Canon Canada’s employees participate. It’s something she says speaks to the company’s commitment to continually evolve its approach to environmental stewardship.
Part of that evolution is expanding the employee green team to welcome employees from across the company. Previously, this planning team had comprised staff from the environmental, corporate communications and human resources teams. The goal, Beltran-Alcazar says, is to harness employees’ passions and ideas to help Canon find new organizations to support and to improve its own environmental footprint.
“We want to be able to get ideas from employees to improve our performance, and replicate that in all our other offices. That’s what we’re looking at this year,” Beltran-Alcazar says. “We’re always looking for what else we can do.”
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Advertising feature produced by Canada’s Top 100 Employers, a division of Mediacorp Canada Inc. The Globe and Mail’s editorial department was not involved.