In this day and age, it is no longer acceptable for businesses to simply make a profit. They must equally focus on the benefits they provide to the communities in which they operate and limit their impact on the environment. This formula has come to be termed the triple bottom-line.
Here at LMLA, and as a result of being an educational business, we are uniquely positioned to play a leading role. Our positive practices and beliefs have the potential to become magnified through the educational process.
The teachers at LMLA have strong social justice values and are keenly concerned about the world’s natural environment. We encourage our teachers to raise critical social justice issues in their classrooms, and we attempt to create meaningful projects that enable our students to research and debate these issues.
Our teachers are passionate about teaching and passionate about sharing their values with our students. Likewise, our students are encouraged to share their ideas, beliefs and values.
A couple of weeks ago, a UBC graduate student by the name of Holly, undertaking an Award Certificate in Sustainability, approached LMLA with a request to conduct an environmental audit. I, as the owner of LMLA, was excited by the potential that her results might bring, and hoped that they would provide us a bit of a road map to becoming more of a sustainable company.
The full results are yet to come in and will be shared in our December newsletter. Meanwhile, a renewed discussion has already begun on how we can reduce our paper usage and better manage our garbage. Students may see that we now have a third garbage can in each classroom that has been designated for organic waste only. We will now separate all our organic waste from our recycling and regular garbage.
All of us at LMLA feel strongly about finding ways of reducing our environmental footprints, and we would like to challenge all our students and those in our community to take stock of their impacts and consider means of reducing them as well.
Some Words to Go Back to School With