Ottawa, ON– The new Westboro Subaru dealership has shown it’s serious about environmental issues by teaming up with Zerofootprint, a not-for-profit organization that helps businesses become sustainable by increasing efficiency and offsetting environmental costs.

The dealership at 225 Richmond Rd in Ottawa opens today and aims to show customers Subaru’s apprecciation Just as importantly, it makes it clear to its customers that it understands that consumers and businesses will be changing their habits as environmental concerns become increasingly urgent.

But every human activity comes with an environmental cost, and that is where Zerofootprint plays a vital role in making sure the event is consistent with Subaru’s vision of a healthy environment and sustainable business model. Zerofootprint’s energy experts calculated the environmental costs of the even—it’s electricity use and patrons’ transportation to and from the event, and the printed promotional material. Once a company knows what its “footprint” is, it can take steps to neutralize it. By investing in renewable energy initiatives and carbon-sequestering reforestation projects, Zerofootprint was able to “offset” Westboro’s greenhouse gas emissions. That means that the store’s net emissions are zero.

What makes Zerofootprint unique in the offsets field is that the company offsets not only greenhouse gas emissions, but natural resource depletion as well. Zerofootprint calculated the water and trees exploited in the manufacture and printing of the promotional material, then took steps to ensure that the trees were replaced and that investment was made in watershed protection.

“It means a lot to us to work with companies like Subaru,” says Deborah Kaplan, Executive Director of Zerofootprint. “Zerofootprint doesn’t work in isolation—we’re only effective when we team up with like-minded companies, companies that recognize not only that they have a responsibility to the environment, but that their customers feel the same responsibility.”

About Zerofootprint

Zerofootprint provides information, products, and services to the global network of consumers and businesses that wish to reduce their environmental impact. Our organization focuses on three areas: Zerfootprint.Net , a content hub for the green community; Zerfootprint Energy , which specializes in making renewable energy systems financially accessible to builders and homeowners; and Zerofootprint Offsets , a program that helps companies, publications, and events mitigate their environmental impacts through natural resource restoration and carbon offsetting.

For further information on these initiatives, please contact Deborah Kaplan at 416.365.7557 or visit any of the sites listed above.