Winnipeg’s vast tree canopy is a source of great pride for many Winnipeggers, but it’s under threat.
The Emerald Ash Borer Beetle and Dutch Elm Disease alone is expected to take out two-thirds of the city’s public tree canopy over the next century. If something’s not done — and soon — all of that life that all of those trees breathe into Winnipeg’s neighbourhoods will be snuffed out.
That’s why, in September, Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman announced a bold vision to protect and expand the city’s tree canopy. Called the Million Tree Challenge, it asks individuals, not-for-profits, and private businesses to come together to plant one million new trees across the city over the next 20 years.
In December 2019, Telpay answered the call and made a $250,000 commitment to the Million Tree Challenge which includes public tree plantings. There were public plantings scheduled for 2020 however due to the pandemic it forced those events to be delayed, so instead we’re offering Winnipeg business affiliates free trees to plant themselves. One of those affiliates is the Dakota Community Centre, which will receive 250 trees.
“We are very excited that through this initiative, more trees will be coming to our site and into our community,” says Michele Augert, CEO of the DCC. “It is through such meaningful partnerships that we are able to continue to enhance our spaces and the places people in our community come to live, play, and gather.”
This is just one green initiative among many for the DCC, however. In 2017, for instance, the community hub opened a 60,000 square foot fieldhouse that is LEED Silver certified. And in 2018, it became a Telpay for Business customer, doing away with issuing 200 paper cheques each month to vendors, instructors, referees, timekeepers, and ice technicians.
Eliminating those cheques and going with an electronic payment solution like Telpay’s is no small environmental idea, by the way. One estimate by the PayItGreen Alliance suggests that paper cheques add 3.6 million tonnes of greenhouses gases to the environment every year. Telpay estimates that by eliminating the paper cheques of over 100,000 businesses across Canada, our electronic system has saved the equivalent of a mature 80,000 tree forest.
But like the DCC, Telpay’s electronic payment system is just one of our many green initiatives. This January we enacted a Green Action Plan that includes making office operations even more sustainable, retrofitting our historic building in downtown Winnipeg, and participating in the Million Tree Challenge.
Visit info.telpay.ca/greenactionplan for all of the details on the Green Action Plan or contact us directly at 1-800-665-0302 or sales@telpay.ca to find out how switching to Telpay can help your business reduce its environmental footprint.