A conservation initiative of the Vancouver Aquarium and WWF-Canada, the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup provides Canadians with the opportunity to rehabilitate shorelines and create healthier water ecosystems for people and wildlife, one piece of trash at a time.
RSA’s Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup events took place in nine cities across the country. Employees across RSA and Johnson offices worked together in teams to pick up garbage from various locations where water met land.
The teams worked together to clean up shores in the following locations:
- Vancouver - Burrard Inlet at Portside Park
- Edmonton - Emily Murphy Park
- Calgary - Elbow River at Stampede Park
- GTA – Marilyn Bell Park
- Québec City – Parc de la rivière du Berger
- Sherbrooke – Magog River at Boisé de la Sauvagine
- Montréal – Canal Lachine – Pont Lafleur
- St. John’s – Quidi Lake
- Halifax – Frenchman Lake
"Participating in the cleanup with colleagues was an enjoyable team-building exercise,” said Molly MacInnis in RSA Canada’s Toronto office. “Encouraging us to participate in initiatives that are important to us on a personal level is a testament to RSA’s belief in the benefits of integrating employee engagement and corporate responsibility initiatives.”
At the end of each day, each region also weighed and tallied how much trash had been cleaned up, participated in an important discussion about the items they found, and reflected on what they learned from the experience. Among the most interesting and unusual items picked up was an onion, a jar of pickles and a shopping cart. In total, pounds of litter was picked up before it had the chance to get into the water where it can harm fish, whales, turtles, shorebirds and other aquatic wildlife.
"RSA Canada is proud to participate in this initiative in partnership with WWF-Canada and the Vancouver Aquarium. We know how important it is to keep our shorelines, parks and lakes clean in order to preserve Canada’s wildlife," says RSA President and CEO, Martin Thompson. "The five-year partnership with WWF-Canada is helping us inspire and engage employees in workplaces across Canada to take environmental action, through activities like the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup.”
Every year, tens of thousands of Canadians take action against shoreline litter by participating in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup one of the largest direct action conservation programs in Canada. Now in its 24th year, the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup has collected more than 1.2 million kilograms of trash across Canada with the help of over 700,000 volunteers.
To participate in a Shoreline Cleanup near you or to learn more about this important initiative, please visit www.shorelinecleanup.ca.
For more information about RSA Canada, visit www.rsagroup.ca or check us out on Twitter at @RSACanada.
About WWF-Canada & RSA Canada’s partnership
In March 2016, WWF-Canada and RSA Canada kicked off a new five-year partnership to inspire and engage employees in workplaces across Canada to take environmental action. With this partnership, RSA became the new presenting sponsor of Living Planet @ Work, WWF-Canada’s environmental employee engagement program. In doing so, RSA demonstrates and promotes the benefits of integrating employee engagement and corporate responsibility initiatives.
Through this partnership, WWF-Canada is supporting RSA to develop a robust national green team program in order to engage employees coast to coast to take action on sustainability.
This partnership supports RSA Canada’s corporate responsibility commitments to reduce the carbon emissions from our internal operations by 12 per cent per employee by 2018 (2015 baseline) as well as support our customers with tools and solutions to better respond to changing environmental risks and opportunities.