Our philosophy is to provide clients with unique and cost-effective
solutions. In doing so, we place great emphasis on knowledge sharing
to ensure we leave clients with the skills, experience and confidence to
carry the results of projects forward.
Tavares Group Consulting is pleased to announce that they have partnered with Mitacs and Western University in a venture that will usher forward the next generation of the Sustainability Toolkit. Through a Mitacs Accelerate Cluster grant, six interns from the Master’s of Environment and Sustainability (MES) program at Western will work with partner organizations to undergo a research project to study the effectiveness and applicability of the Toolkit’s 13-step process across multiple sectors. The interns will also apply the Toolkit’s recently launched digital Action Plan and Assessment Tool, which offers users improved functionality and reporting capability. (More information on the online application that was developed by Fanshawe College can be found in our post from March 2015).
The participating partner organizations will benefit from a detailed analysis of their current level of sustainability implementation. In addition, interns will develop a process document for each organization outlining how they can integrate sustainability into all aspects of their business. The document will demonstrate how to unite existing resources and fill gaps in order to ensure that sustainability is fully ingrained within the organization’s processes and structure.
“I hope that [the Sustainability Toolkit] will set the framework for establishing a formal method for the evaluation of environmental performance at APOC. While [we have identified] our primary markers…. I would like to better understand that path to quantifying other areas such as supply chain, packaging, sales and marketing, consumer use phase of products, and product end of life.”
– Hans Loeffelholz, Sr. Environmental Health and Safety Specialist, Abbott Point of Care Canada Ltd.
In addition to providing Western MES candidates hands-on experience in sustainability planning and integration, the project allows the interns to benefit from participating in an innovative research project that highlights the value of a process-based approach to sustainability integration and implementation across all sectors.
“The co-op term of the MES Program is really the capstone experience of the Program…. [Mitacs is] a great funding source…and [it] creates novel collaborations… Mitacs-funded projects have proven to be tremendous vehicles for advancing the development of MES students, and have proven to be fundamental research experiences that have helped individuals gain employment opportunities once they have graduated from the MES Program. This current [Mitacs Accelerate Cluster] is a bit of new frontier — this is the first grant of this type that the MES Program, and its partner, Tavares Consulting, have been awarded. So, the next few months will also be something of an adventure to see what develops from this research project!”
– Dr. Ian Colquhoun, Chair, Master’s in Environment and Sustainability Program, Western University
“This partnership will give Tavares Group Consulting access to top research interns allowing for further understanding of how to integrate sustainability and corporate social responsibility in an organization, while giving students opportunities to grow their skills and networks as they work with multiple industry partners.”
– Alejandro Adem, CEO and Scientific Director, Mitacs
Tavares Group Consulting would also like to take this opportunity to thank Toolkit Ambassador Bruce Power for their contribution to this research project which demonstrates how the Sustainability Toolkit can help organizations across all sectors navigate sustainability issues in a systematic way.
Stay tuned to our blog for updates as the project continues!
