Environment Committee on June 11th, 2015

[Terri LeRoux]

Greenwashing is essentially the term that's used in the ENGO sector. It's the fear of corporations, who may be viewed or perceived by the public as being the cause of some environmental degradation or who are not doing their part. So the corporation will partner with an ENGO to increase their profile and their reputation, without that being a true engagement and a true commitment to changing practices or having an open mind to what they can truly contribute.

From our end, part of what we do is to ensure that all of the partnerships we engage in are mutually beneficial. Further to what Mike was saying about the volunteer piece, we really engage them at all levels of the organization. We want to see dirty fingernails and rubber boots on the employees, because it's the employees that speak to management.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thanks so much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you.

We'll move to Mr. McKay, please, for seven minutes.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I want to continue on that line of questioning. It's actually what I was thinking about as you were testifying, because the relationship between the ENGO, the government, and the corporation is sometimes a touch problematic.

Let me focus on Ms. Barocas for a second, with the Earth Rangers. One of your corporate sponsors is Teck. I was out at Teck's operations in southern B.C. about two years ago, and they are pretty impressive. They basically take a mountain and slice it off and process it, put the coal in rail cars, and send it off to China. However, whichever way you want to slice it—and I'm not punning that—it's an environmentally impactful corporation in its activities.

So help me with your thinking as to how you approach or vet a sponsor or potential sponsor. Would the Rangers ever feel comfortable when they are in a relationship with Teck—or Imperial Oil was another one you mentioned—calling into question some of the company's core business activities? I ask because I think that in some respects you have probably faced this decision-making process, and I'd be interested in your thinking.

[Tovah Barocas]

That's an excellent question, and it's something we have spent a fairly significant amount of time discussing here.

Because of the nature of Earth Rangers' mission, which is engaging children and their families on environmental issues and empowering them to get actively involved in them, we don't feel it would be appropriate for our audience to be used for advocacy. They really are not at an age where they can think for themselves. So they trust in Earth Rangers, they trust in their teachers, and they trust in their parents to provide them with guidance. Because of that we have strict policies in place that none of our corporate partners, or individuals or governments for that matter, have any direct say in the message we provide to our members.

We provide them with objective and scientifically proven facts about various environmental issues, whether it be climate change, pesticides, or deforestation, but we don't engage them in any kind of advocacy activities. That's why we're able to take donations and funding from a variety of sources.

Like Terri said, as long as the relationship is mutually beneficial and the organization is providing us with much-needed funding for our programs and has a commitment to that program, we are usually comfortable with it.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I'll direct the same question to Ms. LeRoux, who's obviously done some thinking about this. It is anxiety-producing, shall we say. On the face of it, some of the activities by some of these sponsors are incompatible with good environmental stewardship. How do you sort your way through those conflicts?

[Terri LeRoux]

I won't lie and say that it's easy. I think from a very practical point, we have a very solid gift-acceptance policy that's approved by our board of directors and reviewed on a biannual basis. It's available to the public. It's incredibly transparent. For example, it speaks to things about who we will accept gifts from and under what situations we would not accept a gift.

One of the conditions is also that whenever there is a donation of over $100,000, which has any implications, real or perceived, the board of directors considers it at a board meeting, and there's some very healthy debate around the impact from a perception point and from an ethical point. It really evaluates how we are going to achieve our objectives, meet the environmental outcomes, and help CVC realize its goals while managing the possible public response to a corporate partnership.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I had an interesting conversation with the head of a large NGO. Everyone here would know the name of the NGO. It had entered into a relationship—this is offshore—and its analysis was that it lost donors because of its relationship with the particular corporation. The attitude of its donor base was that, “Well, you're going to get money from corporation X, Y, or Z, so you don't need my money, and you don't need my time.” Have either of you experienced that?

[Terri LeRoux]

Yes.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

That's interesting.

[Terri LeRoux]

It's a very real part of the fundraising process with environmental fundraising.

[Tovah Barocas]

I wanted to add to my response before that you have to be committed as an ENGO, and you have to spend a lot of time discussing with your board and your management team what your stance on these issues is going to be. From Earth Rangers' perspective, we also feel passionately that a lot of the environmental challenges that Canada is facing can't be solved through alienating entire sectors, and that there is a need for collaboration. Making the energy sector or the mining sector feel that it's in a battle against ENGOs is not necessarily going to advance your cause either. Having that collaboration without going too far and making sure you're not compromising your values is really important.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Mr. Bevington, go ahead, please, for five minutes.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, witnesses. It's very interesting.

Just to follow up, have your boards turned down any contributions in excess of $100,000?

[Terri LeRoux]

I'm just reflecting. They have definitely turned down gifts of less than that, which were more sponsorship arrangements in which the companies were really looking for extensive promotion that wouldn't necessarily substantiate the marketing or sponsorship agreement. But no, for gifts of over $100,000 we fortunately haven't been posed with an ethical dilemma of that sort.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Okay.

Has it happened to Earth Rangers?

[Tovah Barocas]

We've never had to turn one down, but we have had to go back and kind of renegotiate some agreements and some of the expectations regarding what the corporation wanted from Earth Rangers. We've had to go back and say we can't do this, this, and this, but if you're willing to kind of readjust your expectations, we can still move forward with a partnership.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Do you have a set of ethical standards that you give to companies along with your requests for donations?

[Tovah Barocas]

We don't.

Like the Credit Valley Conservation Foundation, we have a gift acceptance policy. That's just an internal document that the board of directors and our advisory committee use to assess potential partnerships, but we don't provide our partners with any kind of regulations in that sense.

[Terri LeRoux]

Yes, we do have a code of ethical standards that is published on our website. We also adhere to the standards of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. As an individual member, I adhere to their code of ethical standards, and our agency belongs as well.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

The biggest issue right now with corporations in resource development is social licence. That's a factor that has built up over the last number of years into what it is today and will certainly increase in importance going forward. Is this something your organizations are very aware of?

When you're dealing with an area, say with the Earth Rangers in Cold Lake, where there is lots of opposition to potential development and companies absolutely require social licence, is there a sense when you're working with schools there that you're avoiding prejudicing the social licence aspect of the relationship?

[Tovah Barocas]

We've been lucky enough to have a really positive response from schools, from the parents of our members, and our members themselves. I think that goes back to just how much importance we place and time we put into ensuring that every message that we put out there to our constituents, if you will, to the kids who are members, is scientifically based.

We've had situations before where a company in the energy sector is supporting our program and then the school program that year is primarily about climate change and the importance of reducing our impact on the planet. I think that because of that they feel they can trust our programs, so we've been lucky enough not to have met a lot of resistance.

In fact, we've had in the past on a few occasions a parent call us and say, “I see that you've partnered with this company and they are looking to develop very close to our home, and we're against that, and we're disappointed that you would partner with them.” When we explain our thinking around it, they usually end up seeing it our way and being okay with it. We've been lucky on that.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

I have one last question.

You're charitable organizations, so do all of these contributions from corporations count as charitable donations?

[Tovah Barocas]

For us they do, yes. We don't really have a sponsorship program, so the recognition that we provide isn't valuable enough to really be considered a sponsorship. It's more community investment or corporate philanthropy, rather than marketing sponsorships.

[Terri LeRoux]

No, for us we have both portfolios. We have the corporate grants, corporate donations, which would constitute the charitable contribution, because they're voluntary with no expected return or benefit. Then we have the sponsorship and cause-related marketing arrangements that are not charitable.