Governance and Conduct

At Unisource, we believe that high standards of governance are an essential ingredient in the effective management of the company as well as in our ability to create a trusting and mutually beneficial relationship with all of our stakeholders.

We work hard to ensure the highest standards of ethical behaviour in our relationships with employees, customers, and suppliers and we value our hard-earned reputation for integrity.

In our workplace, Unisource is committed to maintaining a safe environment that fosters fairness, respect, diversity and open communication. We have developed comprehensive policies governing harassment, discrimination, conduct, equal opportunity, and we conduct regular communication sessions with all employees on these important issues.

We also want to know what kind of job we are doing for them. In partnership with National Business Research Institute, Unisource conducted its first Employee Satisfaction Survey in 2008 to assess the current level of satisfaction among our team members and establish a benchmark for our performance. Unisource made a donation to the Children’s Wish Foundation for each survey completed to encourage widespread participation.

Overall, Unisource Canada placed in the 66th percentile – 16 percentiles above the North American average. In other words, Unisource team members were more satisfied than 66% of employees at similar North American companies.

What’s more, the analysis of the scores by topic revealed that Unisource scored above average in all 12 areas.

While our satisfaction scores were good, the survey also identified areas in which Unisource can further improve our team members’ level of satisfaction. In response, we have commissioned four National, cross-functional teams to address these opportunities over the next 12 months.

Sustainable Governance

Our success in advancing Unisource’s sustainability strategy will depend on the dedication and support of our employees. That’s why we are doing our best to elevate to make sustainability a governing principle at Unisource – from our corporate mission statement to sustainable business strategies to day-to-day interactions with suppliers and customers.

At the corporate level, our commitment can be seen in the appointment of Andrew Gustyn in the role of Corporate Sustainability Manager, whose role it will be to develop and roll out programs, metrics, and communications that will ensure we are viewed as the sustainability leader in the industry.

At the local level, multi-disciplined SWAT (Sustainable Workplace through Action and Teamwork) groups have been created in each of our facilities to recommend solutions for the reduction of waste (solid and otherwise) stemming from our offices, our warehouses and our cafeterias. The SWAT teams are also committed to engaging and educating their fellow employees in pursuit of these objectives.

In 2009, we intend to establish a mechanism by which we can collect data from all our regions on our energy, waste production and water usage. We also plan to evolve the SWAT team concept to a national basis in order to share best practices.

At the same time, we will expand the important sustainability dialogues we initiated over the past year by conducting quarterly round table sessions with our customers in each region and regular town hall meetings with our suppliers.