Sustainability Statement
Jacques Whitford understands sustainability to simply mean: living responsibly, as individuals, communities, businesses and societies in ways that do not damage the natural world. Living responsibly includes enhancing environmental, social, cultural, economic and human rights conditions. The only way to do so is by taking integrated, long-term approaches that systematically unite social, economic and environmental factors as complementary allies.
Jacques Whitford’s commitment to sustainability arises in view of one big question that we have decided should have bearing on everything we do:
‘What will our children, grandchildren and their children inherit?’
To answer this question in a way that future generations will respect, we understand that 21st century business solutions will require adopting a revised set of values and metrics upon which to base decisions. They must incorporate a set of environmental, economic and social factors around which all stakeholders can coalesce. We believe that this is not only possible but necessary – redefining business success in ways that improve the environmental, social and economic fabric of our world. We don’t think that this is some sort of new ‘fuzzy’ thinking, but rather that our well tried quantitative and practical expertise can be applied to a revised set of standards and expectations.
Recognizing the Challenge; Being Part of the Solution
We recognize that the era of industrialization combined with unprecedented population and development pressures, has significantly degraded our environmental, social and economic fabric. This dangerous pattern continues today but it does not need to be the fate of modern societies. We can realize positive benefits from both progress and from natural and cultural health. The challenge is how to get there.
Since 1972, Jacques Whitford has strived to be in the forefront as environmental, engineering and scientific professionals. We have earned a reputation as innovative, skilled practitioners in a variety of disciplines solving challenges in the natural and built environments. Even though we always sought to represent the forward edge of thinking and practice in environmental consulting, we are now determined to reshape our capacity and skills to lead the movement towards sustainability. As scientists and engineers our training and experience suggests that sustainable systems developed by balancing environmental, economic and social factors can work just as well or better than the conventional systems of today, and can be widely embraced by all elements within a society or organization. Typically, the best designs mimic the best systems ever known, those of the natural order.
Jacques Whitford is determined to play a catalytic role in what we call the ‘reversing the cycle’ business - transforming the patterns of degradation to sustainability. To that end we are engaging and supporting all of our employees in this initiative. We are calling upon the same expertise and commitment to excellence that has always been the basis of our extraordinary success and focusing them on meeting the challenges of sustainable business and social redesign. We are asking our exceptional people to design our path forward, our answer to the ‘Big Question’. We are absolutely determined to be part of the global solution.
Achieving ‘Triple Top Line’ Objectives:
Economic Vitality - Environmental Rejuvenation - Social Enrichment.
Much has been said and written in recent years about the ‘triple bottom line’ approach to business and planning – an approach that balances traditional economic goals with environmental and social concerns. Only a few years ago this was considered a laudable but impractical blue-sky ethic. Today, triple bottom line thinking has become a well accepted tool for integrating sustainability into the business agenda, becoming a progressive measure of corporate performance. Bottom line thinking naturally tends to focus on how to do things more efficiently; minimizing costs, and in the case of sustainability, negative impacts to the environment and society. This is a good thing, but we believe that in many situations we can do better by going even further.
Jacques Whitford’s forward vision is to go beyond improving ‘old world’ practices, towards discovering new ways of operating through the application of ‘triple top line’ thinking. The top line frames what is possible, the height of the mountain. It points to a pinnacle reachable by realizing opportunities, taking advantage of innovative thinking, new or expanding markets and pioneering, value-creating products. Therefore, Jacques Whitford’s practical transformation to sustainability is oriented towards reaching the summit of three top line objectives - economic vitality, environmental rejuvenation and social enrichment. By thoughtfully defining appropriate quantitative and qualitative shared goals, we can evaluate all our actions against them. With these goals before us we will challenge ourselves to forge new ways of thinking, going beyond maintaining or simply improving traditional approaches. We believe that this represents the forward edge of commerce and society – good for us, our clients and ultimately our globe.
To do so we are looking at all our services, skills and products through the lens of sustainability. We are seeking to refocus and re-link them, identifying the ways in which everyone can contribute. We are also adding additional skills through training and recruitment, capabilities that bear directly on the sustainability needs and interests of our current and prospective clients. We believe that this focus continues and builds upon our 36 year history of providing exceptional solutions, often adding value to more traditional outcomes. We are also confident that this approach will profit the wellbeing of our growing family of colleagues and clients, as we simultaneously profit the world in which we are privileged to do business.
As an organization we intend to embody the values we believe in because we know that our commitment to sustainability is only as good as what we actually do. We have therefore embarked on a process of changing our company by minimizing our ecological footprint, referencing a broader, integrated outlook and applying metrics of sustainability throughout our business. To these ends, we are employing proven tools drawn from decades of experience – baseline and quantitative analysis and assessment upon which we can reliably build innovative methods and planning, step-by-step actions, monitoring and continual improvement towards consensus objectives.
Marrying the best of traditional and fresh perspectives and disciplines to continually evolve and invigorate our company has been our approach since day one in 1972. From this standpoint we know we still have a long way to go to exemplify what a sustainable company in our industry can and should look like. But even the longest journey is a series of steps. Individually, by location and service discipline we can and will do more, recognizing we are all in this together to answer our ‘Big Question’ with the only acceptable answer:
‘A future our children, grandchildren and their children will honour us for.’