Jim Harris

Business Sustainability

A Little Less Cardboard Can Save You Millions

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Using sustainability as strategy can drive change within a company's supply chain by engaging suppliers and service providers with the resulting savings running into the millions of dollars a year. A case in point: one of Canadian Tire's most popular products is a six-foot folding utility table, selling many tens-of-thousands a year. The company collaborated with its supplier on product redesign and packaging to use less raw materials to make and package the product. Now, the tables use 11 per cent less plastic in their construction and occupy 15 per cent less volume for shipping. The annual savings for Canadian Tire: more than $375,000 a year as a result of reduced material, packaging and shipping costs. Employee Engagement Sustainability as strategy can also engage employees. In 2010, Canadian Tire's Senior Vice President of Merchandizing invited all the company's buyers to the conference centre for an afternoon departmental meeting. Employees thought it was to discuss organizational restructuring. Before the start of the meeting, the conference centre was very quiet. The goal, it turned out, was to engage buyers in a creative way -- to shake things up -- to facilitate some disruptive innovation on something that should have been a core element of their business activities, but at the time wasn't. Corporate thinking is often to execute on a perfect plan -- in this case, we wanted to take buyers out of their usual, comfortable environment and see … [Read more...] about A Little Less Cardboard Can Save You Millions

In Business, Don’t Waste a Crisis

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Many Canadians are trying to do more with less during this economy of thrift. But we all face essential expenses -- those costs associated with "keeping the lights on" -- often, literally. Whether you're managing a household or a large corporation, energy -- that stuff that enables your car to move from one place to another, keeps your beer cold and your shower hot -- is generally regarded as an essential expense. Sure, you could drink warm beer and take cold showers; but really? There's got to be a better way. During a poor economy, it can be a challenge for a business to increase profitability as competition for the "cautious consumer" intensifies and there is increasing pressure on margins. But a recession offers the perfect opportunity to question the way things have always been done -- and drive out waste and inefficiency. One of Jim's favourite slogans is: "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste." While most are cautiously optimistic about the North American economy today, it was a different story in the latter half of 2008 when Canadian Tire launched its Business Sustainability Strategy with an aspiration to profitably grow the business without increasing energy use or contributing to an increase in the carbon footprint of the economy. And the company has been somewhat successful: energy and fuel used to move product from vendors to stores is nine per cent lower, despite a 22 per cent increase in tonne-km of product shipped. And energy use for buildings and … [Read more...] about In Business, Don’t Waste a Crisis