Hi Calvin,
Thank you ever so kindly for such an informative e-mail regarding Costless' green initiatives. Your overview definitely provided much greater insight as to how important this is to you as a company, its employees, customers, and more importantly, the city itself. Although I never doubted it, I think it's safe to say that I feel at ease knowing that my office supplier cares about the environment just as much, if not more, than I do.
I probably have at least one of your competitors come in for a sales pitch on a monthly basis and I always feel confident declining their offers knowing that Costless provides the best customer service, product selection, prices, etc... This is another great addition to the list of why I'm so happy to be your customer.
On that note, I want to take this opportunity to let you know what a pleasure it's been working with your company. Sidney always handles any tasks or requests, no matter how large or small, with such accuracy, thoroughness and professionalism. His upbeat personality and his attention to detail (even in personal matters) have made this working relationship an added bonus to my job. In an age where we're constantly faced with automated responses/answering machines, e-mail templates, etc... I have to applaud the extra mile Sidney goes every single time. Additionally, the contact made with the delivery guys is always a delight. Coupled with such a prompt and detailed email from the CEO himself, I have to say congratulations on the culture you have built within your company! I look forward to a long and enjoyable relationship with Costless Express.
Warmest regards,
Karoline
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Hello Karoline,
thanks for giving your feedback to Sidney and not switching your business.
Looks like we need to toot our own horn a bit more so all customers understand how passionate we are about the environment.
To put your mind at ease, Costless Express is an excellent choice as your office supplies supplier since you too are passionate about reducing environmental impact.
As the owner and Chief Energizing Officer I have been leading the environmental charge in our company but also as an innovator for other companies in our industry to follow as an example. Here are some of the exciting initiatives we are most proud of.
How this is significant compared to our competition is that our competition also has mainly gas and diesel powered vehicles and their policy is not as ridged as ours and as such they can be found delivering a single box 75km outside the city and this contribute significant amounts of excess CO2. Costless Express has made a conscious decision not to sell to Government Agencies such as school districts for this reason, as they would want service to all locations no matter how far away and how small the order. It would only take a few long distance deliveries to Abbotsford to negate any wins an electric truck could deliver.
How about I call it a day for now or I'll keep typing pages :-)
I'm very happy to chat with you to set your mind at ease that you have chosen a great supplier who is passionate about the environment and our city.
If you would like to follow more about our initiatives and fun stuff we do here - please check out my blog http://costlessexpress.blogspot.com/
We are so happy to have you as a customer!
Cheers,
Calvin Johnson |
The Costless Express EcoYIKE is Canada's first human-solar-electric hybrid delivery vehicle, offering an eco-friendly solution for last mile micro-trip deliveries in urban areas such as downtown Vancouver - where Costless Express has over 1000 office supply customers.
About our EcoYIKEIt's such a handy vehicle, you can almost go anywhere.Because our EcoYIKE is electric (no noise, no pollution, no CO2 emissions) we have been granted access to Vancouver's new bike lanes. As a result, we're able to make fast efficient deliveries even quicker than a car or truck...it's the ultimate urban delivery vehicle!Thanks to this mode of clean parcel transportation, Costless Express is also improving its day-to-day business efficiency by 20-50% higher per delivery compared to current fleet of vehicles. End-customers are even more closely connected to the Costless Express brand and core values on the environment once they see our EcoYIKE in action. So, it's an advantage in terms of visibility and client communications, and in terms of finance and productivity. Everyone loves the EcoYIKE!
The solar recharging panel in action!
We started the EcoYIKE project September 2010 and spent several months refining the reliability and length of service on a charge. Our recent break thru solution has been to add 3 high efficiency solar panels, making the EcoYIKE fully autonomous (never needs to be plugged in- even on a cloudy day).EcoYIKE Statistics:
Our EcoYIKE is started manually and then an electric motor kicks in. The motor is quiet and powerful and allows us to reach a comfortable speed. The capacity of the EcoYIKE cargo box to carry our signature red Costless Express plastic delivery totes (no cardboard here!) is impressive. Our emissions-free EcoYIKE works in all weather but our drivers are happiest on one of our trademark sunny Vancouver days of course!
The EcoYIKE represent a new class of vehicle, between a 40 lb. bike and a full size delivery truck. This EcoYIKE design weighs only 215 lbs., yet can carry an unprecedented payload of 600+ lbs (227Kg), leading to very high efficiency ratio. This means that the majority of energy is spent moving the payload, and not the vehicle.
That whole stack fits in the EcoYIKE's trailer!
There is a "golden ratio" for vehicular efficiency, that is, vehicle weight / cargo weight. A typical truck that weighs 8000 lbs., and often carries 2000 lbs. of cargo around town, comes in at "4″. That's obese! One wants to get the ratio below "1″, where the cargo weighs MORE than the vehicle.
Who's the king of the golden ratio? The EcoYIKE at a slim and trim 0.35%!
"Costless Express Loves Earth Like a Mother"
Authorized in Vancouver cycle lanes Whisper Quiet Electric Motor CO2 emissions: 0 (Zip, Nada, ZERO) Length: 249cm (98 in) Height: 142cm (56 in) Width: 94cm (37 in) Weight: 97Kg (215lb) Payload: 227Kg (600lb) + Max Speed: 15 km/h Range: 40km or 6 hours per charge (unlimited on Solar Power) Volume: 2.5 m3 Cost: $7000 - $10,000
As a locally owned business and like most Vancouverites, we consider the environment to be a major concern -all the more reason for Costless Express to continue its environmental impact reduction policy. Costless Express is the first carbon neutral office supplier in Canada and our main strategy is to cut off 20% of our CO2 emissions and the EcoYIKE is a crucial element in order to achieve this goal."It's Easy Being Green"™
Based on the early success and positive customer feedback over the past few months, Costless Express aims to raise the number of ecoYIKE's to five before the end of the summer. Each delivery with an EcoYIKE represents a carbon reduction of 5.33 pounds of CO2 compared to our current delivery trucks.
Costless Express is the first carbon neutral office supplier and the largest supplier of eco friendly B2B office products in Canada. For over 20 years Costless Express has developed innovative strategies and industry firsts including our famous 365 returns, free no minimum order next business day delivery and the most unique product selection available for business delivery.
Costless Express is the market leader in B2B office consumables and the innovator of the highly efficient single source supplier concept. Costless Express offers 40,000 products including a diverse line of environmentally friendly paper, cleaning products, Fair-Trade Organic Coffee, recycled toners and inks, milk, fresh fruit and even Birthday Cakes - all delivered to offices.
For further information please contact:
Another delivery on its way!
Calvin Johnson
CEO - Chief Energizing Officer
Costless Express
Cell - 604-830-4474
Desk - 604-444-4467 x301
Email - calvinj@costlessexpress.com
Linkedin - http://ca.linkedin.com/in/1calvinjohnson1/oView%20public%20profile
For the second time in recent months XPLANE has partnered with The Economist to create a compelling video on a topic of global importance. After working together on "Did You Know? 4.0", The Economist enlisted XPLANE's visual communication expertise to develop "The Carbon Economy" about the growing importance of climate change and green technologies and solutions.
"The Carbon Economy" will be shown at The Economist's upcoming Carbon Economy Summit on November 17 and 18, 2009 in Washington, D.C. The video is three minutes in length and includes simple visuals and a moving soundtrack to clearly convey the troubled state of global climate change and what steps must be taken to reach a positive outcome. The production was created using Apple's Keynote software.
Cheers,
Calvin
How time flies! It was a year ago today that Costless Express became Canada's first Carbon Neutral Office Supply Company. We continue to monitor and lower our CO2 emissions, but I must say all the "low hanging fruit" efficiencies were dealt with last year. It becomes harder to find ways to keep pushing the environmental boundaries in business after going great guns last year.
You heard it here first! On top of their $1.00 fuel charge, Grand and Toy is adding a minimum order fee! Any orders under $50.00 will be charged a $5.00 handling fee. This charge adds them to the ranks of Staples and Office Depot, who have always had a minimum order fee. 
Only Costless Express can supply Office Supplies, Coffee, Janitorial, Food, Snacks, Milk, Fruit and Furniture all in one delivery. Try that, G&T!
Earlier this year, our company set a very lofty goal of being Canada's first carbon neutral office supplier. Today on Earth Day, we met that goal! Costless Express is now a Carbon Neutral Company.
Darrin and I attended our final Ecotrust Canada workshop and purchased our first carbon offsets. Costless Express will continue to lower its CO2 emissions each year, and our goal over the next 12 months is to remove 40 tonnes from our carbon footprint.
I wanted to spotlight Alison Cretney, Magdalena Szpala and Michelle Bonner at EcoTrust Canada. They were exceptional, supportive, educational and very professional in how they ran the workshop.
Calvin
After visiting the EPIC show today I met up with my great friend Peter Frost. If you recall in my November 12th entry, it was Peter who really kick-started my interest in becoming environmentally aware.
We had a great dinner at Morton's Chop House downtown (fantastic service, but that's another story) and Peter filled me in on where the industry is heading. He says it was a real tipping point year for Eco awareness in business all over the globe, but was specifically impressed with the knowledge and commitment Canadian businesses have continued to show. We discussed Costless Express going Carbon Neutral on Earth Day at the graduation of our EcoTrust 3 month workshop on Carbon Neutral companies. He had not heard of another Canadian Office Supply company being Carbon Neutral - so we could be the leader.
Yesterday Darrin and myself attended our first of three workshops hosted by EcoTrust Canada. The course is three months long, and we meet once each month to learn how to measure our carbon footprint and reduce our footprint.
Surprisingly, there were only 10 companies in the workshop. But in the end the smaller group worked well, as we all had tons of questions. The EcoTrust staff was well prepared, with a fast paced agenda, a catered lunch, and a guest speaker from the past workshop - King Pacific Lodge. We all rolled up our sleeves and immediately began drawing out our own company's "Emissions Scope Map". From there, we learned what Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions were, and what emissions were directly controllable by our company. As you see, we were not the greatest artists.
We left with homework on measuring our carbon emissions, and we are to collect the data and enter it into the EcoTrust calculator to determine the amount of tons of CO2 our company is emitting per year.
Over the next month we will look at our trucks, gas and electricity, and even how our staff commute to work. Darrin and I both felt the workshop was well done, and we look forward to the challenge of measuring our footprint.
Calvin
After meeting Robert Safrata from Novex on January 28th, I reviewed all my notes from the meeting. He was a wealth of information about all things ECO. I am very dedicated to changing Costless Express to a Carbon Neutral Company.
One group I decided to contact from my notes was EcoTrust Canada. Michelle Bonner, Project Planner was very informative about their services. One such service that caught my attention was a innovative new program to help small- and medium-sized businesses shrink their carbon footprint. Ecotrust Canada, in partnership with The Pembina Institute, the David Suzuki Foundation and corporate sponsors,is offering The Carbon Neutral Workgroup for Small Business will help companies calculate and reduce their greenhouse gas (CO 2 ) emissions. Companies participating in the Carbon Neutral Workgroup will identify cost-effective ways to reduce their carbon emissions. By helping to save the planet, participants will be saving themselves money too says Ian Gill, President of Ecotrust Canada .
The three month workgroup was a very reasonable $1000 so I signed up Costless Express. To my surprise, only 12 companies have actually completed the Workgroup and interest was still quite low. I'm sure that will change as word spreads about their reasonable and quality services.
I'll post another update after our first session on March 11th, 2008.
Calvin
Meeting Peter Frost last week really has me excited to become Carbon Neutral. I announced our intentions to our staff Monday and there were resounding cheers of approval.
Over the weekend I spent a fair amount of time learning about CO2 emissions, Global Warming, Carbon Footprints and how Costless Express can become a Carbon Neutral company.
Yesterday I connected with THE CARBON NEUTRAL COMPANY in London. The call didn’t start out as smoothly as I was expecting. They immediately interviewed me for about 20 minutes to gauge our commitment level. There are only about 1000 companies currently that are Carbon Neutral Certified and can adhere to the strict yearly guidelines.
Gladly, Costless Express was already doing a lot of the right things, and our value proposition to our customers of single sourcing was quite interesting to them. “If your customer can have all their supplies delivered with just one order, that really saves on the amount of trucks on the road and the emissions they would produce. We like that.” was their response.
To move forward, we will need to submit a full assessment and detailed report of our Green House Gas Emissions. I will need to hire an independent science partner to advise and measure Costless Express’ yearly carbon output. There are only about 3 companies in the world authorized to do this report. They will advise us of our emissions, create emissions reduction programs and submit their report to The Carbon Neutral Company for consideration of becoming Certified Carbon Neutral. There are some significant costs and time commitments at this stage. No turning back now!
I’ll be keeping everyone updated to the progress.
Please visit http://www.carbonneutral.com/ to learn about our environment and how everyone can make a difference – we only have one planet, lets take care of it.
Calvin
Last week I was in Toronto on business and met a very interesting person named Peter Frost. He was a guest speaker at the conference I was attending and is world renowned for his forward thinking on educating businesses about social responsibility and the environment.
Since I could not stay for his presentation the next morning I invited him to dinner with my controller Darrin and another business owner. We were all very interested to hear what he had to say and we weren’t disappointed. Peter spent over four hours discussing how our company can make a difference in the global environment by managing our Carbon Footprint and offsetting our CO2 emissions. Peter was amazing and his ideas have given Costless Express an exciting direction for the future.
I have always managed Costless Express with environmental sensitivity. We use plastic totes instead of boxes, recycle, 50% of our staff take public transit, we use and sell recycled products and on and on. What I found out is that there is so much more we could be doing to reduce our company’s impact on the environment. Peter was excited about our single source concept where we can offer our customers ALL their supplies in one delivery. You see, our truck can deliver what it could take ten other suppliers to deliver and this reduces the carbon footprint of that customers order, causes less traffic congestion and less emission. Our customers need only order from us and we are helping the environment. That was nice to hear from him but he suggested we really push ourselves as a company and strive for the top company ranking of being a CARBON NEUTRAL COMPANY.
I made a commitment at the dinner table that Costless Express will become a Carbon Neutral Company by April 22, 2008 – Earth Day.
Now it’s time to see what I’m in for!
Calvin
