Chosen as one of Canada's Greenest Employers for 2009:
By Richard Yerema, Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editor (Apr 16, 2009)
Some of the reasons why Toronto Hydro Corporation was selected as one of Canada's Greenest Employers (2009):
has introduced numerous endeavours to reduce its own energy consumption, including extensive recycling and reuse programs (from office waste to electrical transformers), transit subsidies for employees ($10 each month), and the use of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper products
has converted a number of fleet vehicles to run on bio-diesel and ethanol, maintains one of the city's largest solar panel arrays, and installed the first urban wind turbine in North America in partnership with a local co-operative group
as a result of its many energy reduction initiatives, the company has saved 355 megawatts of electricity since 2005 -- enough to power approximately 240,000 homes
recently introduced a couple of unique (unique for a seller of electricity) power-saving initiatives for customers, including giving away over 75,000 retractable clotheslines as well as creating the "Festival Light Exchange" program, which provided customers with one free string of LED Christmas lights for every two incandescent strings returned
also introduced the "Summer Challenge" program to provide a 10% discount on summer electricity bills for those residential customers who reduced their electricity by 10% over the previous summer -- over 30% of its residential customers participated last year and reduced their consumption by 10%. (The successful campaign has recently been taken province-wide by the Ontario Power Authority)
followed-up the residential program with the "Summer Challenge for Business", reaching out to over 50,000 business customers (who account for 80% of the city's electricity usage) offering a matching 10% credit on their summer electricity bills for a 10% reduction in energy consumed
employees (and their families) also support the annual Earth Day celebration -- planting over 2,000 trees and shrubs since 2004 -- as well as the international Earth Hour project
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