Environment and Sustainability

Mahihkan is committed to honouring and safeguarding our planet and minimizing our impact on the environment by reducing the use of resources, minimizing the creation of solid waste and discharges to air and water, and by avoiding substances harmful to the environment.

Mahihkan is obliged to help maintain the quality of the environment for all life on Earth.

Our Commitment:

We will operate in compliance with all relevant federal, provincial, and municipal environmental legislation and take steps to exceed these standards

We will strive to use environmental best practices in all we do for both current and future generations

We will partake of training and educational programs offered to increase our knowledge and awareness of opportunities to implement best practices, such as the Green Procurement program

We will continually assess the impact of our operations on the environment and take steps to improve our environmental performance whether this be through adopting new technology or incorporating changes in day-to-day practices. This includes developing a plan for sourcing energy, materials, and reducing the carbon footprint of our business activities, including operations and individual projects

We will communicate our commitment to the environment to clients, employees, and the public, and seek partners and contractors whose commitment to the environment reflects that of Mahihkan

We will commit to reviewing the environmental policy at least once per year or more often if circumstances warrant

Energy Sourcing

Mahihkan employs measures to improve energy efficiency at its office, which is the owner’s premises. Measures include the use of high-efficiency heating, set-back thermostats, energy-efficient office equipment, energy-efficient lighting, roof, and insulation that meets or exceeds code, and double-glazed thermal pane windows.

Material and Equipment Sourcing

Mahihkan adheres to the 7R’s principle: refuse, reduce, reuse, repair, repurpose, rot, recycle. This principle guides our ongoing corporate activities and is part of the project planning process.

Mahihkan will refuse to purchase or otherwise use material and equipment that is offered with excess or non-recyclable packaging. Mahihkan will strive to eliminate the use of harmful, wasteful, and non-recyclable products that enter the waste stream via land, air or water and will plan to use the minimum amount to avoid creating such waste. Examples of this are converting to the electronic storage of documents instead of having paper files and where printing is necessary, printing double-sided in black ink, using refillable toner cartridges, and avoiding the use of single-use plastics and other non-recyclable items for events. Where possible, Mahihkan will advocate and practice the reuse, repair, and repurposing of items. This includes purchasing equipment that does not follow a path of planned obsolescence. Mahihkan will compost its organic materials and work with service providers in the hotel industry who participate in composting programs. Finally, Mahihkan will utilize paper from sustainably managed forests, and which has a recycled fibre content of 30% or higher. We will recycle paper and mixed rigid containers through local recycling programs, and recycle all products handled by Stewardship agencies under the BC Recycling Regulation.

Reducing Carbon Footprint

Along with the measures noted above, Mahihkan will minimize the carbon footprint of projects and events. Our plans for events include options for participants to join virtually and avoid the need to leave their communities, whenever this is possible. Our planning for travel arrangements includes recommendations for participants who must attend to use the most energy efficient means to travel, considering distance, location, and other conditions. When air travel is necessary, and where available, we encourage participants to use airlines that are presently carbon neutral or airlines that are committed to achieving this goal by 2050. In situations where car travel is required, we provide support for carpooling. For local travel, we discourage the use of private automobiles in favour of public transportation, where available. Mahihkan plans include assessing the availability of sustainable hotels, where the core elements revolve around reducing waste, saving energy, and cutting down on water usage. Mahihkan will incorporate the cost of Bullfrog power for all events managed to ensure that energy for the event reduces its carbon footprint and helps bring new renewable energy projects to the grid.

Privacy

We protect privacy and personal information by ensuring that we adhere to the federal Privacy Act, and the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. We also ensure that we follow the applicable privacy protection legislation in provinces.

Our collection of data and all confidential material is fully compliant with the latest security standards and is subject to rigorous internal audits and third-party verification, all of which conforms with the latest industry standards such as: PCI-DSS/HIPPA/SOX and is in accordance with the aforementioned Acts.

All computers used by VGN have fully encrypted SSD drives. Our data is hosted in a distributed, redundant and state of the art network operation facility which conforms with the highest levels of security. Geographically dispersed in Canada, we are also resilient to failure.

Data is fully encrypted using the latest in AES-256 cipher block encryption and we only host the data that is necessary and pertinent. We archive data for a 3-month local retention with a 8 year glacial lifecycle hook integrated through the infrastructure code. We fully divulge our corporate privacy policies, and information regarding our IT infrastructure in situations warranted.

Any paper documents are stored in a password protected fireproof filing cabinet. We minimize the printing of any potentially sensitive documents. Documents that are no longer required are shredded in a federal government approved shredder.