Staples Professional maintains both an Environmental Management System (EMS) and Quality Management System (QMS). These systems are ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified; this internationally recognized standards acknowledges the depth and thoroughness of our operations. The systems are built upon standardized process, procedures, and internal and external audits. ISO certification provides us 3rd party verification of our processes and an unbiased perspective on our operations, and participation is 100% voluntary. These certifications demonstrate our ongoing commitment to continuous improvement and responsible operational and environmental management.

ISO 14001 is an internationally recognized standard that focuses on minimizing impacts on the environment. These corporate registrations assure our customers that we strive to deliver superior customer service and ensure we take measures to reduce any environmental impact associated with our business.

ISO 9001 is the international standard that specifies requirements for a quality management system (QMS). We use the standard to demonstrate the ability to consistently provide products and services to meet the customer and regulatory requirements. This standard is based on a number of quality management principles including a strong customer focus, the motivation and implication of top management, the process approach and continual improvement. Using ISO 9001 helps ensure that customers get consistent, good quality products and services, which in turn brings many business benefits.

Since 2013, Staples Professional Canada and Staples Canada have partnered with Bullfrog Power to support clean, renewable electricity. Staples Canada is one of the leading supporters of renewable energy through Bullfrog Power in Canada, choosing clean, renewable electricity for two head office buildings, Staples Professional e-commerce services, 2 data centres, 4 Staples Canada Copy & Print production centres and its entire flyer printing operations. The partnership is part of our long-term commitment to having a positive impact on its customers, associates and the planet.

Energy is a key priority in Staples’ corporate social responsibility strategy, complementing our sustainable product sourcing, internal operations, and our comprehensive recycling programs provided to customers. Bullfrog Power’s green electricity comes from a blend of wind and low-impact hydro power sourced from new Canadian renewable energy facilities.

Choosing renewable energy ensures our business is operating in an environmentally accountable manner and it helps reduces the negative impact of our operations in the communities we serve.

Staples Professional / Bullfrog Partnership Update

Through this partnership with Bullfrog Power, Bullfrog will inject clean, renewable electricity onto the grid to match the amount of energy these facilities use on an annual basis. Our partnership with Bullfrog demonstrates our commitment to reducing our environmental impact and aligns with our ISO 14001 Corporate Registration.

Below is an infographic on our cumulative green energy purchase over the course of our partnership with Bullfrog to date along with the emissions reductions associated with this and some equivalencies to help illustrate what they mean.

In late 2012, we introduced Roadnet software to our delivery system. The goal of Roadnet is to optimize routes and reduce mileage by routing to the most efficient path possible. Roadnet is designed to increase route density and reduce mileage and time for the drivers, with the additional advantage of increasing efficiency and reducing our carbon footprint as we reduce miles.

Be Part of the Solution! Fifty Green reduces the environmental cost of ordering.

As a global company Staples Professional takes our social responsibility and the environment seriously. We believe that we have a responsibility larger than profit maximization and job creation – to minimize the negative effects of our operations and strive to impact positively on the environment. Order delivery is a significant source of the environmental impact of our operations, releasing, among other toxic chemicals, Nitrogen Dioxide. Our Fifty Green program encourages you, our customers, to help reduce the impact on the environment by reducing the number of deliveries to your location through combining orders that in turn improves our operational efficiencies. This allows for better service and competitive prices for you, while also reducing packaging and toxic gas emissions, so it is beneficial for the environment.

We have two options to assist our customers in reducing their environmental impact.

1) The Fifty Green Charge will encourage you to combine your orders. Should your order remain less than $50 we will add a charge of $5.99 to the order. A portion of the order charge will be donated to Tree Canada to help plant trees in local communities across Canada to offset the environmental impact. Each fee collected helps buy a tree. The benefits include the ability to continue to create orders less than $50 with the assurance that the impact of small orders is being reduced.
2) Fifty Green Accelerator encourages you to combine your orders to reach a minimum of $50. Should your order remain less than $50 we will save the order to allow you time to determine additional items you would like to purchase. You can use www.eway.ca at any time to complete your selections, alternatively you can contact our customer care department or we will be happy to follow up with you. The benefits of this program include no additional delivery charges and ecologically sound purchasing practices.

What does it mean for you? Regardless of how you participate in Fifty Green, if your order size is above $50, there is no impact to you – you will continue to receive all of the great products that you have come to expect from Staples Professional. You will also have the knowledge that you have played an active role in helping us reduce our operational costs, to maintain competitive pricing AND reduced the impact on the environment. Additional delivery charges, order minimums, or handling charges may apply for deliveries outside local areas and for select products.

Talk to your Staples Professional account representative to find out more!

Staples Professional is proud to announce we are a Gold Sponsor with Tree Canada with our annual donations over $100K and lifetime donations well over $850,000 and more than 150,000 tree plantings since 2008.

In 2014, Staples Professional was awarded The Eterne Award from Tree Canada to acknowledge our superior financial support, enthusiasm for the Tree Canada cause and significant in-kind support in marketing and brand recognition.

This year, we will be dedicating half of the proceeds from our Fifty Green initiative to fund Tree Canada’s School Greening Program where we will help green 10 schools across the country. The other half of the proceeds will continue to support the organization’s National Greening Program, which will plant trees to help offset the environmental impact of making small deliveries.

Tree Canada is a not-for-profit charitable organization established to encourage Canadians to plant and care for trees in urban and rural environments. A winner of the Canadian Environmental Award (2007), Tree Canada engages Canadian companies, government agencies and individuals to support the planting of trees, the greening of schoolyards, and other efforts to sensitize Canadians to the benefits of planting and maintaining trees. To date, more than 80 million trees have been planted, more than 550 schoolyards have been greened, and Tree Canada has organized 8 national urban forestry conferences.

Today, the most important aspect of the urban forest is clearly energy conservation and carbon dioxide absorption. Urban trees reduces CO2 by directly removing carbon. You need about 500 full-sized trees to absorb the carbon dioxide produced by a typical car driven (20,000 km/year) By planting in your neighbourhoods, schoolyards, parks and in the countryside, Tree Canada leaves a living, breathing legacy for generations to come.
Please visit Treecanada.ca for more details

At Staples, we expect all of our suppliers to respect and protect workers’ human rights and manufacture goods in an environmentally sustainable manner. To maintain this standard, we audit and continue to monitor factories in developing countries supplying us with Staples brand® products for compliance with our Supplier Code of Conduct.

Surplus/discounted items in inventory exist in every warehouse, but throwing things into the landfill isn’t really our cup of tea at Staples Professional Canada.

MAKE the connection HAPPEN! As a recent sustainability initiative that truly made a difference with students at a local school. Staples Professional partnered with ReBoot , a not-for-profit organization that refurbishes laptops so they are equipped with the latest software. By donating our gently used laptops we were able to avoid these being destroyed and re-use them by helping to establish a computer lab in a local school. By doing this, students were empowered to become more tech savvy and computer literate.

Since 2009 we have diverted more than 60,000 pounds of gently used clothing from the landfill to the Canadian Diabetes Association and The Lighthouse Children and Families to benefit the community

Our employee-based local Sustainability Teams, having aligned with our National Sustainability Committee have been very successful in raising environmental awareness and communicating environmental performance results. Our Sustainability Teams drive internal awareness and action through the promotion of globally recognized events such as Earth Day, behavioural change initiatives such as diverting landfill waste by increasing recycling and composting, and through educational events such as Waste Reduction Week and Earth Week activities as well as through a quarterly Sustainability newsletter.

At Staples Professional, we encourage both our customers and our associates to understand the importance of our environment and provide various ways for them to help them have a positive impact. When we all work together, the environment and future generations benefit greatly.

Excess packaging — whether for individual products or in our shipments to customers — wastes resources, impacts our business costs, and burdens our customers with packaging waste that they then have to dispose of or recycle. To mitigate these impacts, we’ve recently stepped up our efforts to eliminate unnecessary packaging throughout our supply chain, including:

Each and every order is packaged to size. All product dimensions are placed in our system as the order is assembled the exact box is chosen for your order. This reduces unnecessary boxes being used and a small item being placed in an oversized box.

Reducing the basis weight of our Staples® brand case paper packaging, saving more than $8 million and reducing cardboard use by 880,000 pounds without impacting product damage rates.

In our Race to The Top sustainability strategy, Staples calls on suppliers to compete not only in terms of product quality, cost and features, but in finding innovative solutions for product manufacturing, packaging, and distribution which reduce impacts on the planet. Read more about our new sustainability strategy for products and packaging.

Staples Professional is COR certified in Edmonton, Alberta, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and St Johns, Newfoundland.

The Certificate of Recognition Program (COR) is an occupational health and safety accreditation program that verifies a fully implemented health and safety program which meets national standards.

The objectives of COR are to provide industry employers with an effective health and safety management system to reduce incidents, accidents and injuries as well as their associated human and financial costs.

Staples Professional maintains a medical device establishment license (MDEL) with Health Canada, enabling us to sell regulated medical devices and products.

Our MDEL permits the sale of Class I through Class 4 medical devices. This certification provides our customers a level of assurance that medical devices and the wide array of first aid products sold by us meet or exceed the safety requirements outlined in the Medical Devices Regulation.

We make it easy for customers to measure the impact of their sustainable initiative through clear, detailed reporting and regular Procurement Business Reviews. Some of the environmental benefits our reporting can offer include:

· Environmental product spend, including recycled and FSC spend.

· Monitoring average order size and orders under $50.

· Switch to Eco tool reporting capability to assist customers with greener purchases.

Due to our national network of facilities and coast-to-coast delivery, the environmental impact of our operations stands as one of the key areas of focus for our Environmental Management System (EMS). To diminish the environmental effects of transportation/delivery, we utilize transportation management software to optimize routing, significantly reducing the number of kilometers we drive annually and the associated carbon emissions. Staples Professional has made significant improvements over the past decade and looks to continue these improvements into the future.