And in that bigger picture, there is also a lot more buzz -- in the form of buzzwords. Many organizations now have a person with the newly minted title of, say, vice-president, environment, or director of sustainability. That person or a team of employees may work with their company's recently developed EMS -- for environmental management system, a set of practices and often a database that helps the organization monitor its efforts to reduce its environmental impact.

And then comes the biggest new buzzword of all -- ESG. That one is three adjectives in search of a noun, standing for environmental, social and governance. Some organizations speak of their commitment to ESG "standards", others "considerations". Many, again, have a vice-president, ESG, or similarly titled official, whose domain covers a whole set of ideas about corporate responsibility that were barely discussed a decade ago.

All of which points to how seriously Canada's best employers are now taking the cause of sustainability, and how much they want to be seen to be doing so. Yerema says the applicant pool for Canada's Greenest Employers is the fastest-growing specialty category among the competitions run by Mediacorp Canada.

"The interest level increases every year, and I think that's a reflection of organizations implementing policies and programs where they feel they have something to share," he says. "We're hearing from organizations with stories to tell."

Many organizations, especially large ones, have been motivated by Canada's participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate, which calls for an immediate reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to keep the global temperature rise to less than two degrees C above pre-industrial levels and to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Many of Canada's Greenest Employers have set the 2050 goal for their own operations, and many also have set specific goals for becoming carbon neutral, by 2030 or sooner. TD Bank Group, which has had a chief environment officer since 2008, proudly notes that it has been carbon-neutral for the past 12 years.

There's another factor driving employers to make sure they have strong sustainability policies -- recruitment. At B.C.'s TransLink transit system, Derek Stewart, a 19-year veteran, is now director of safety, environment and emergency management for Coast Mountain Bus Company. He observes: "When I started as an environmental officer, it wasn't a mainstream idea -- we really had to push to get people to buy in to our recycling and energy-saving programs. Now, people want to know how sustainable you are as an organization before they come to work for you. It's been a beautiful shift."

Yerema echoes that perception. "Employers are making sure that people they're recruiting understand that they actually care and that they're trying to improve their processes and their impact on the community, the local environment and the planet," he says. "I think that becomes a great selling feature for a generation that has been raised with the idea that we are responsible for the environment, and we should not only mitigate our individual impacts, but act collectively. An employer that's actually walking the talk is very attractive to a lot of people coming of age and looking for work."

So don't count out the bees. Well beyond the traditional office recycling efforts, companies these days are also busy installing electric vehicle charging stations in their parking lots and holding "green meetings" -- conferring without plastic water bottles on the table or wasting uneaten snacks. In their business lines, manufacturers are trying to reduce plastic packaging and take back their used products for refurbishing, while banks are increasingly stressing sustainable finance to support green firms. Across the Canadian employment hive, in other words, there is now a lot more honey.

– Berton Woodward
This story appeared in the official magazine announcing Canada's Greenest Employers (2022), published on April 20, 2022, and featured in the Globe and Mail. Used with permission.