Kurt Archer

Westjet has long been the flight carrier of choice within Canada. The staff is characterized by their friendly, fun and humorous attitudes that is sure to keep your spirits as elevated as you will be physically, in the air. Westjet has demonstrated exemplar service and is a role model business practice in the aviation community, not only in Canada but all over the world. The difference is that Westjet capitalizes on its people, and deriving the shared value of their people, makes it a employee of choice. Given this type of market leadership, I believe the true potential for Westjet to really take off is on the horizon yet.

When an airline decides to lower their prices, the first things to go out the window is usually food quality (or food period), and then service. In Westjet’s case, the first was scenario was true, and now any food on board must be purchased from a third party provider, beverages however remain complimentary. Westjet’s success in maintaining high quality service is really thanks to their core values as an organization. Humour replaces luxurious pampering, and that is seen through their genuine care and growth approach to staff and clients. It goes a long way to describe what individuals value, and it is not being treated like royalty, but treated like important individuals.

So what then could be next on the horizon for Westjet if they plan to stay the course as market leaders in the industry? Well in order to come full circle as an organization committed to triple bottom line results, Westjet must now complete the circle through their conscious impact on the community and environment in which they operate. Based on my observations, I have made three suggestions that could truly go a long way for an organization like Westjet.

Read the rest of this entry »

So it’s been 2 months since I’ve returned from an almost 3 year experience in Pakistan and India. So much has changed for me, that even still I find re-adapting to the Canadian culture difficult.

I suppose some of the experiences I had will never leave me, some truths you cannot just sweep under a carpet. Now that I am back in Canada, the hardest part is trying to share those experiences I had in a way that help people understand these truths that I have seen: poverty, exploitation, corruption, dishonesty. I guess this feeling is shared by anyone in the field of sustainability. The question eludes me, while I find myself stuck between a rock and a hard place. The worst of all, for me, is falling on deaf ears to the ones that are supposed to be closest and most beloved to us: our family.

The conundrum, in which I have befallen, is where to cross the line when on one side of it you know you cannot tell another person what s/he is doing wrong and how to live their life, on the other hand you cannot stand idle watching while ignorance is harming innocent people (and the environment) thousands and millions of miles away.

What would you do if stuck in this situation, crying desperately to be heard, to share some tiny morsel of experience, that may trigger an awakening to just how damaging the majority of North Americans live.

I know, I’m being harsh, accusing, judging. I know, but what would you do? What would you do if you knew someone was doing something that unbenownst to them is harming others, often, many others.

“What makes you so much smarter than us” or “who are you to think you know whats best for us” are two phrases I hear in defense whenever I point out the pointless obessive purpose to an electronic pepper mill. I wish I had all the answers, no one has all the answers. I do have a lot of questions though, like these:

Read the rest of this entry »

A story to share from this morning, I’d like to know how often this kind of discussion erupts from your breakfast table?

The scene began with Ale emerging from the kitchen with a plateful of delicious fruits; oranges, plums, kiwi and apples. Sustainability has been an issue on our tongues for the past month now as the My Choice! initiative rolls out.

Suddenly, the colourful plate of fruit before me draws my attention to its uniformity. Every fruit slice, identical to the next especially the seedless oranges. My curiosity overcoming me, I grab one of the uncut oranges an sure enough by hypothesis was correct:

I was sitting in Bangalore, India eating Oranges grown in Australia and my friends were eating apples grown in Washington.

The absurdity of my situation grew into a discussion about food transportation, genetically modified (gm) crops, pesticides and mono cultures.

So I related this story to my friend who had purchased the oranges:

“Imagine being born, to a city where every single person looked identical to you, acted like you, sounded like you when they spoke. How could you imagine yourself in such a community?” Well these are the communities of monocultures that we are growing around the world to feed our desire to have the ‘perfect’ apple or ‘perfect’ orange, completely oblivious to how, and what cost was made to get these ‘perfect’ products to us.

What joy could we have by biting into an orange that is of the same concentration of pulp and juice as the next. In fact, remember the last time you ate Mandarine oranges for Christmas holidays? How bland have they become? I remember my oranges being so much sweeter and juicer as a kid.

The conversation continued on to hair products. Shampoo. Recently, in my rare visit to a super store, I was persuaded to purchase an organic shampoo. It was about the same price as the usual Fructus product I usually buy. I thought; heck it’ll try it! To my amazement, it works great!

Now this particular morning, fully charged on a sustainability epiphany, I compared the ingredients of a fructus shampoo and the my new organic shampoo. Well, needless to say the fructus won the battle in terms of number of chemicals it uses, total of 23, 4 of which were chlorine related, and 1 was perfum. Whereas the organic shampoo had 5 natural extracts, 1 of which was purifed water.

The math is simple, but the question on my mind was why do we need conditioner? Where did it come from? And why are we dependent on it? The answer was triggered by a comment made by William McDonough in an address to Vanderbilt University. The chemicals found in shampoo may clean your hair stripping it of many essential nutrients necessary for its own growth, but it also drys the hair making it tangly and rough, which is why you need more conditioner to make it feel smooth and silky.

What a con.

moral of the story: buy organic (locally)

In the heart of beautiful Amritsar in Punjab, the jewel city of the Sikh followers, lays the Golden Temple, by far one of the most ambitious developments of the millennium. Over 750 years old, this temple was enacted by Guru Nanak, the first Guru of Sikhism.

The religion boasts a very humanitarian approach to life; to serve humanity is to serve God, as some signs around the compound will tell you. This feat is proven in its entirety on the sheer volume of travelers, pilgrims and devotees that come through the gates. All throughout the day and night volunteers are working to sweep the premise, to clean the temple, and enacting their duty to service the people of this sanctuary.

Most noteworthy are the eating grounds provided here. The Langar Khanna (Blessed Food) is a completely systematized wheel of food for the people. No cost for entrance and all are welcome. Everyone eats together in lines on the floor so there is no distinction in class here. Thousands of people come through these gates everyday, and everyday they provide this service. It is all funded by the amount of donations and volunteers provided.

First, you get your metal dish, a metal bowl for drinking and a spoon. Then you, like hundreds others like you at this time, enter the large hall where everyone will sit in lines, cross legged. Volunteers then come by with spoonfuls of daal (lentils), rice, curd, or halva (a sweet flour mixture) in the mornings. All vegetarian options. Water is poured into the bowls for drinking and the food is eaten with small rotis (similar to pita bread). After you are done, you carry your plate outside, hand over the spoon to these men sitting in chairs, and then you pass your dish and bowl down an assembly line of volunteers who take the dirty plates in large trolleys over to the dish washing area where even more volunteers are ready to clean all the dishes that come their way. Then you move along to the side of the Langar Khanna and take another metal bowl for chai (tea with milk) and enjoy it amongst a crowd.

Read the rest of this entry »

Renewable action in practise before my eyes.

I had the pleasure of visiting Teri Gram estate today in Gurgaon, which is on the outskirts of Delhi. It is a project of The Energy and Research Institute (TERI) foundation, which began under the patronage of Ratan Tata in the 1970s. It is now under the leadership of Dr. Pauchauri, noble laureate winner for sustainability.

The campus is literally in the middle of nowhere, which symbolizes its removal from urban waste societies, but what a retreat it was indeed. Upon arrival, I was given an electronic car which resembled a CNG rickshaw, green in colour obviously. We passed by golf courses, cricket fields and lush vegetation. The retreat itself was a very modern design with high end facilities. Its primary source of light was from the sun, and it had no air-conditioning. In fact, this facility produces no waste.

I got a guided tour of the facility which began with looking at the structure itself, its energy efficient design, its use of wind-air ducts that run 4 meters below the earth and is cooled and shot up through the building with the use of fans.  To complement this invention, warm air ducts run up the building so that when the cold air enters the room there is somewhere for the warm air to go. The idea first emerged in ancient Greece and is now something taught in elementary science – hot air rises! So why have contemporary builders not heard of this concept? Got me.

Read the rest of this entry »