Leading by Example

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Ray Stewart, Chief Officer of Safety, Health & Environment (right) presents Yasuhiko Ogushi with his Conservation Leadership Award.

On April 21, BC Hydro celebrated the conservation achievements of its employees in the first annual Employee Conservation Leadership Awards. Over 25 nominations involving individual and team initiatives throughout the organization were received. These individuals and teams clearly showed how conservation leadership can significantly reduce BC Hydro's environmental impact by changing behaviour, policies and infrastructure.

According to David Procter, Lead by Example Manager at BC Hydro: "The key is that our employees are demonstrating that our biggest results will be from everyone applying conservation thinking and actions into every aspect of their job."

These initiatives are great examples of conservation actions that all employees can generate, from turning off computers, to designing buildings that are 75% more energy efficient, using more sustainable modes of transportation, and identifying projects that can make our buildings and generating stations more energy efficient.

The award recipients' achievements are as follows:

• The Lead by Example ten-person team from across BC Hydro and the province created tools and communication materials to raise awareness for conservation, which ultimately led to the foundation of what is now the Lead by Example group. This group supports employee conservation activities.
• Aki Lintunen challenged BC Hydro to design its new field buildings well beyond current building codes, so that they will use 75% less energy than conventional buildings and will be some of the most energy efficient of all provincial buildings.
• The Surrey Lower Mainland Services nine-person volunteer team promoted conservation and generated a 9% energy savings in 2008 (well above their 5% target) as well as developing an advanced separation and recycling program and creating a business case to reduce the use of bottled water.
• Roger Aubin and Ray Depuit from the Victoria office are both involved with promoting conservation as a Conservation Champion and member of the Lead by Example employee team. Both Roger and Ray are role models by incorporating conservation into every aspect of their job and creating more awareness and action around conservation.
• Yasuhiko Ogushi set up a Commuter Challenge for his team at the Edmonds Office in Burnaby to promote environmentally friendly modes of transportation which resulted in 12% of staff converting to more sustainable ways of commuting and a 5.5% reduction in green house gas emissions.
• Richard Whittaker and Craig Bohnet initiated an energy audit of the Peace Canyon Generating Station. This has resulted in a study which is influencing future plans to track progress and improve energy performance at the facility.
• Julien Lafaille from BC Hydro's Managers and Professionals in Development Program (MPID) was instrumental in bringing the theme of sustainability and high profile speakers to the recent MPID Leadership Conference.

To help spread these great ideas, the finalists participated in a Conservation Café. Discussions about the vision, issues, and solutions to conservation challenges were shared in this forum so that effective initiatives can be expanded across BC Hydro's various sites and employee groups.

"If we're not walking the talk it's pretty hard to ask all the citizens of British Columbia to create a conservation culture," said Bev Van Ruyven, Executive VP of Customer Care and Conservation, BC Hydro.