Impact Zero is a non-profit based in Toronto that empowers passionate people to bring business or community-led climate solutions to life. They are growing the circular economy by empowering people like you to bring business and community-led solutions to life.
A circular economy, also known as circularity, is a production and consumption model that focuses on sharing, reducing, reusing, repairing, remanufacturing, upcycling, and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible to reduce resource waste. Reducing waste also lessens the demand for landfilling and resource extraction.
Impact Zero focuses on empowering people to build circular systems where consumers have a twofold effect.
- Consumers have more choices and the ability to impact demand for goods and services. Changing consumption habits towards renewable and circular products will slowly force producers to adjust their offerings. Though this change won’t happen overnight, companies will be forced to change over time.
- We can directly reduce the amount of resources being extracted from the planet while reducing the amount of waste going to landfills. Decomposing trash in landfills is one of the main sources of methane emissions, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide, and plays a significant role in global warming.
According to a UN report, methane emissions from human activity can be lowered by up to 45% in this decade. Such reductions would be consistent with achieving the Paris Climate Agreement’s goal and avoiding nearly 0.3°C of global warming by 2045.
Working Towards A Greener World
In addition to reducing the toxic methane gas from landfills, the circular economy offers a 39% chance of reducing emissions. However, significant local activity, including solutions created for communities by communities, is required to lower supply chain emissions for the optimal functioning of the circular economy.
Passionate people have the ability to change the world, but they don’t feel empowered to do so. Impact Zero empowers them to bring business or community-led solutions to life by following three core objectives:
- Inform and Inspire: They make it easy to learn about all areas of sustainability from an optimistic angle, inspiring community members to learn about what a future circular economy would look like.
- Innovate: They connect community members to brainstorm solutions relevant to them and find partners to work with to build something bigger than themselves.
- Implement: They support community members to build their community-led initiatives or businesses on the ground, accelerating their progress by providing professional resources, project management, and microgrants.
Their mission is to make a circular economy reality in Toronto by empowering passionate people to bring business or community-led climate solutions to life. Their actions are towards envisioning and leading the movement towards a flourishing circular economy that benefits the community, economy, and ecosystem of Toronto.
Impact Zero caters to individuals and businesses with circular systems at their core.
- For individuals, they help make low-impact living easy to understand, take part in, and be a leader. Impact Zero enables you to maximize your voices, initiatives, and collective power.
- There’s no question that small and medium-sized businesses will be the solution to the climate crisis. When passionate people lead organizations, and those people have access to resources and peers willing to collaborate and find answers, that is where Impact Zero can start to build scalable circular systems. There is money to be made in a circular economy that everyone is overlooking right now.
Ardent Advocate of Circular Economy
Erin Andrews is an ardent advocate of the circular economy. She does this through her roles as the founder and Executive Director of Impact Zero. In addition, she also holds the Director position at Circular Economy & Sustainability, SCV Consulting Ltd., and Circular Economy Solutions at PRI Environmental.
In her role, she helps business leaders uncover cost-saving and revenue-generating initiatives aligned with the circular economy. By reusing, repurposing, repairing, recycling, and being mindful of the resources, she helps companies unlock a higher level of financial growth potential.
In long-term strategic planning, business leaders have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of their organizations. She studies and works right next to companies working to embrace the circular economy. She helps figure out a sustainable strategy that will benefit people, the planet, and the business over the long term.
Erin collaborates with small businesses through Impact Zero, and larger companies work best with her via SCV Consulting. She helps large companies measure their carbon footprint, investigate their products and sustainability goals, and present circular tactics they can implement in a phased approach.
Erin Andrews’ vision for Impact Zero is to shift the responsibility of living a zero-waste or low-impact from consumers back onto businesses and governments, made possible by finding common ground and removing barriers for everyone involved. For her initiatives and visions, she was named one of the Corporate Knights’ 30 Under 30.
Smaller companies and entrepreneurs can collaborate and join the Impact Zero Network for a sustainable business operation. For more information, visit their website at https://impactzero.ca/.
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