SPRING 2023 / REAL-LEADERS.COM 3 LEADERSHIP Rob Safrata, is a Vancouver CEO of two social purpose and climate-leading companies: Novex Delivery Solutions and Coast to Coast Experiences. As a purpose-driven CEO, he was recognized for climate action by the Globe and Mail: “You won’t find a greener chief executive officer than Robert Safrata. ‘Whether I am working in the transportation space or building an international tourism company, by focusing on the triple bottom line, I ensure that environmental and social responsibility are cornerstones of the businesses.’ He is a passionate leader in the green space, leading critical conversations at events, conferences, and on podcasts. He is also the host of CEOs & Self Driving Cars, a podcast focused on adding some visibility and fun in the green space by interviewing their interviewees in a “self-driving” Tesla. www.www.novex.ca About Rob Safrata “I HAD TO FIND A WAY FOR OUR DRIVERS TO AFFORD TO UPGRADE THEIR VEHICLES WHILE CONTINUING TO MAKE A PROFIT FOR THEMSELVES AND THE COMPANY. AND SO BEGAN THE QUEST TO OPERATE AS A TRIPLE-BOTTOM-LINE BUSINESS.” with the same vision and values of people, planet, and profit, we managed to keep hitting (if not surpassing) our milestones. I’ll take a moment to brag about the team and their achievements: • 2004: Introduced 20 hybrids to our fleet of 100 vehicles • 2007: Novex became the first carbon-neutral courier company in North America and set a goal to reduce GHG emissions by 33% by 2020 • 2009: Introduced the first 2 Smith electric trucks in Canada for delivery • 2013: Became B Corp Certified • 2017: First fully electric cars added to the fleet • 2018: Novex joins the United Way Social Purpose Innovators program • 2020: Achieved 59% emission reduction, surpassing the goal of 33% • 2022: Announced the plan to become a zero- emission company by 2030 • 2022: Launched a podcast called “CEOs & Self Driving Cars,” adding visibility and fun into the green space The lesson and my takeaway from this experience are that as a triple-bottom-line company—this is just a proxy for better management. If you are ready to make the change, willing to get creative and buy-in from your team, then business can be the solution. n one known benefit, another hoped-for benefit, and one unanticipated benefit: Less pollution. This was known and led to benefits number two and three below. We were (and still are) the change. Increased business! Doing good work and doing the right thing gave us the hoped-for advantage over our competition. More companies started deliberately choosing to work with Novex because we were focused on sustainability and positively impacting our shared community and environment. Increased morale of our drivers. They were proud to be using hybrids and minimizing pollution. This resulted in significantly less turnover, and fewer costs in hiring and training, resulting in increased profit. Today we have less than 15% driver turnover, and the increased profit goes toward our environmental and social work. Of course, we had milestones to achieve, but we also discovered many unanticipated benefits of making these changes. Due to the combination of setting targets plus having a passionate team
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