Forging strong, strategic partnerships with our customers helped Grand & Toy improve our business performance in 2010. At the same time, we contributed to our customers' success and the achievement of their sustainability goals by showing them that what is better for the environment can also be better for business.
Through three innovative customer partnerships, Grand & Toy broke new ground in socially responsible and sustainable solutions that have set the bar high for future success.
A unique collaboration with McMaster University led to the introduction of an exclusive pilot project for our first Reusable Tote program on a large scale. Grand & Toy worked with McMaster to clearly identify their goals for streamlining office supplies procurement and helped them to see that reducing deliveries and cardboard packaging could generate cost savings and reduce the university's carbon footprint. Using the results of a sustainability survey of their staff, and introducing a lifecycle approach to procurement, Grand & Toy designed a reusable bag for their deliveries, consolidated ordering for McMaster and decreased the number of deliveries to the campus. Supplies are packed in reusable totes, labelled and delivered once a week to the university campus, which takes over second-stage delivery through internal mail. Totes are returned to Grand & Toy at the next pick-up to be re-filled with new orders. The program will eliminate approximately 20,000 corrugated boxes and cut Grand & Toy's GHG emissions specific to McMaster deliveries.
Building on the success of the 48-hour Delivery program introduced in 2009, we partnered with our customers to take the concept even further to support their business needs through our Right Day Delivery program. In 2010, we piloted this program with one of our largest customers, BMO Financial Group (BMO) with great results. Grand & Toy did a "deep dive" analysis of six months of BMO's procurement activity to identify opportunities for improvements. By increasing the efficiency of delivery to the bank's multiple locations and consolidating orders to reduce the total number of deliveries, Grand & Toy and BMO were able to significantly reduce the carbon emissions associated with BMO-specific deliveries and reduce the number of corrugated boxes used for order shipping. We are proud that 5,875 customers accounts have adopted this program to date, and while this innovative program is certainly better for business, it's also better for the environment.
1Environmental impact estimates were made using the Environmental Defence Fund Paper Calculator. For more information, visit here.