An Inside Job

“We want to put ourselves out of business for LEED,” says Pelland. “A lot of consultants are proprietary, but we want to educate. We hope that one day the service will no longer be necessary.”

Not likely. EcoAmmo is built on rare expertise in a market that can only grow – something they’re banking on with Green Alberta, a spinoff company specializing in evaluating the sustainability of building materials. But in the meantime, both the cities of Edmonton and Calgary, as well as the Alberta government, have mandated that any building they rent or build must have a LEED certification. And with the consumer movement toward limiting the individual ecological footprint, more commercial tenants are seeing the value of occupying environmentally sustainable premises.

As a result, while they’re not getting rich from their work, they have snagged some major contracts. One is a multi-year LEED certification contract with ProCura on the $70-million renovation and expansion of the Jasper Avenue Professional Building, which has for nearly 50 years been an eyesore on downtown Edmonton’s main drag. The contractor, Chandos Construction, with the help of EcoAmmo, has already spared the environment of 98% of the construction waste on this project, all of which has been recycled, including many tonnes of concrete which have gone to farms and road beds.

Ted Kotylak, superintendant site manager for Chandos, says EcoAmmo is providing a great service that’s been a learning experience for everybody.

“Once… people are trained properly, it will be an automatic thing,” he says, referring to sustainable building practices.

Besides working on contracts like these, EcoAmmo holds educational workshops, lectures at post-secondary institutions about sustainable building practices and even helps companies gain a better understanding of the key aspects of their own environmentally responsible approaches to doing business.

In terms of reputation, there’s a payoff for businesses with green operating practices. To that end, EcoAmmo offers what it calls a corporate social responsibility profile to help companies communicate to current and potential customers how their practices protect the environment. In the retail sector, says Carter, this is much more common. Companies like Starbucks and Nike have spent millions on campaigns to demonstrate social responsibility. But the practice hasn’t quite caught on in other sectors.

“There are a lot of good stories, but the manufacturing sector is not promoting them,” says Carter. “They should be told as eloquently as possible. It’s no longer positive to be humble.”

While Carter started EcoAmmo as a solo project, its development has been a collaborative effort with her colleagues, both of whom joined within six months of startup. Burdeniuk, a “Jane of all trades” particularly comfortable in the current EcoAmmo construction zone thanks to growing up in a house under continuous renovation, graduated from the University of Alberta’s industrial design program. An interest in sustainability issues made her a “black sheep,” she says, ideally suited to signing on with the new company after her own work in architectural offices around town. Pelland came along just a couple of months later after cutting short a master’s degree in the history of art, design and visual culture with a strong focus on studies in sustainable communities. She enjoyed the coursework, but when the time came to write her thesis she realized she wanted practical, hands-on experience rather than more theory. She left the program on a Monday, had lunch with Carter on Wednesday and joined EcoAmmo on Friday.

That they’ve since proved so like-minded shouldn’t surprise. They met through volunteer work with MADE in Edmonton, a non-profit organization promoting the public’s awareness and appreciation of art, design and architecture. Now, EcoAmmo is much more than a job to all three of them, and none of them minds putting in long hours to promote a lifestyle they believe in – whether those hours are spent guiding clients through the creation of sustainable spaces or put towards building one of their own. And with so much in common, they have developed the kind of working relationship that, no matter how success might change the shape of the business, will keep them focused on the goal that brought them together.

“What could be better than to change the world with your best friends?” Carter asks.

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