April 2007

• What does 'Social' mean? - How the SPP might be changing
• Call for submissions to the Vibrant Workplaces HR Options to Action Guide
• Plastic Bags Banned in Leaf Rapids, Manitoba and San Francisco, California
• Links of the Month

What does 'Social' mean? - How the SPP might be changing

The term 'Social' in Social Purchasing Portal, up until now, has been used under the context of poverty reduction and in particular, paying employees a Living Wage. Although important, employee wages is only one aspect of how businesses can be socially progressive in terms of caring for their employees. SPP Calgary is considering expanding the menu of options that a business can identify with in order to participate within the SPP network. This menu will be focused on three main pillars:

• Vibrant Workplaces (ie. innovative human resource practices, Living Wage, personal development opportunities, employee voluntarism, etc)
• Environmental Stewardship (ie. green activities like paper/water/waste/energy reduction, recycling, fleet fuel-efficiency, etc)
• Charitable Giving and Community Investment (ie. grant-making, donations and sponsorships, cause-related marketing, social marketing, community projects and non-profit partnerships, etc)

We intend to engage businesses about which of these 'social' options they are doing and which ones they would like to learn more about. It is our hope that we can profile what each supplier is doing so that purchasers have a better understanding of what they are supporting.
We need your feedback about this proposed change! Please email info@sppcalgary.org with your comments/suggestions.

Call for submissions to the Vibrant Workplaces HR Options to Action Guide

Vibrant Communities Calgary (VCC) is pleased to open the Call for Submissions to the first edition of the Vibrant Workplaces HR Options for Action Guide. Download the submission form which must be completed and returned to the VCC office no later than April 15th for consideration. This has been modeled after Victoria's Quality of Life Challenge.

Plastic Bags Banned in Leaf Rapids, Manitoba and San Francisco, California

Leaf Rapids, a small town of 550 people in Manitoba, banned single-use plastic bags in an attempt to save the environment. They are giving each of their citizens a cloth bag to use instead. On a larger scale, San Francisco has also banned single-use non-recyclable, non-biodegradable plastic bags, giving large grocery stores 6 months to comply (and one year for drug stores). Read the CBC article here.

What are your thoughts about this topic? Do you think a legislated ban, or a voluntary initiative, or no initiative at all, is needed here locally? What are local businesses doing now about plastic bags? If you have any thoughts or comments, send them along to info@sppcalgary.org and I'll compile your responses for next months newsletter.

Links of the Month

• Corporate Knights (www.corporateknights.ca) is a Canadian magazine for responsible business. They have special reports on a variety of topics and a listing of the top 'socially-responsible' businesses in the country.
• The Great City Project (www.greatcity.ca) has a blog written by CTV news anchor Barb Higgins writing about her first-hand experience with Calgary's most vulnerable people. It also has a forum for you to voice your opinions and ideas of concern to you, in terms of how to make Calgary a Great City for everyone.

If you have good links to share, pass them along!

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