Sustainability and environmental stewardship are practices that NovAtel, a part of Hexagon, prioritize in our products and the way we work. In celebration of Earth Day 2021 and its theme of “Restore Our Earth,” we highlight two key ways Hexagon supports a sustainable future: through our green building design and our 55 percent recycling diversion rate.
The Hexagon | NovAtel HQ in Calgary, Alberta is a LEED Silver certified green building.
A green office building with LEED Silver certification
When designing and constructing the Hexagon campus in Calgary, Alberta, which is home to NovAtel offices, we saw the unique opportunity to incorporate our sustainability goals through a green building. The U.S. Green Building Council developed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating and certification system, which is now used worldwide.
LEED is a proven system that directly addresses climate change by encouraging the creation of resource-efficient buildings. It measures water efficiency, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, innovation, location and transportation impacts on the environment. Striving for LEED certification demonstrates Hexagon’s commitment to sustainability.
For example, the building includes free electric vehicle charging stations for employees. Motion sensors automatically turn off LED lights throughout the building when areas are not occupied. The building can be temperature controlled at certain times to cool the building without using air conditioning compressors. Separate systems monitor overall energy use floor by floor, section by section.
The construction, design and operation of the Hexagon campus in Calgary earned us a LEED Silver certification, recognizing our efforts to maintain a resource-efficient, healthy and sustainable green building. By monitoring our energy use, we reduced energy consumption in line with the Canadian standard for building energy performance, contributing to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Our next goal is to reach carbon neutrality by 2030. We want to achieve net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases from our direct and indirect sources resulting from the generation of electricity and heat purchased.
With differently sized bins, we encourage employees to divert waste materials to recycling and compost instead of landfills.
Diverting over half of our waste to recycling
Through the efficient design of our building, we encourage employees to reduce, reuse and recycle before putting waste in the garbage. Our annual diversion rate target is 55 percent, meaning that we divert over half of our waste to recycling instead of the landfill.
The kitchen facilities include reusable cups and glasses, plates and cutlery. The design of the space also encourages employees to recycle and compost any waste materials. (Photo: Shearer Design)
To achieve this ambitious goal, we organized an employee environmental committee dedicated to sustainability efforts within the building. They designed office bins of different sizes and colours to reduce the amount of material employees send to a landfill — composting and recycling bins are now much larger than the garbage bins.
Bin colours correspond with municipal garbage carts for employees to recognize and choose the appropriate bin more easily. Did you know that used pens are recyclable? We do that as well!
This committee further achieved reusability by incorporating accessible ceramic dishes and glassware in the shared spaces on every floor. Usage of disposable cups and containers was reduced significantly as a result.
These small changes make sustainability and environmental stewardship an everyday practice for our employees.
Building towards a sustainable future
Achieving a sustainable future means incorporating environmental goals at every stage of a business. We embody and demonstrate these initiatives through our headquarter’s design and the everyday actions of our employees. Hexagon is an enabler of sustainability, both internally and through its solutions that improve efficiency, quality and safety.