Community & Sustainability

Community and sustainability go hand-in-hand at Open Hands. We’ve chosen to live and work in a community that has a number of features enabling us to live more sustainably—mostly by lowering our negative environmental impacts.

But sustainability isn’t just about protecting the environment. It’s also important to factor in economic contributions and quality-of-life measures, including community engagement.

Open Hands has been a great vehicle for supporting sustainability in the lives of its principals, and has contributed in a smaller way to supporting the sustainability objectives of some of our clients and associates.

Community

Open Hands is located in the community of Alta Vista, in the City of Ottawa—Canada’capital. Our business activities link to the City’s dominant economic sectors: the federal government, the tech sector, and non-government organizations.

Alta Vista is an interesting and diverse neighourhood, located in the first ring of post-WWII suburban development—19th century farmland that became housing in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Fairly criticized for being less walkable than nearby Old Ottawa South and Old Ottawa East, Alta Vista can boast magnificent trees and lots of room for backyard gardening and composting (and some rogue urban chickens), as well as public allotment gardens. Transportation alternatives have expanded since we arrived, including the addition of transitway stations and improved bicycle routes. The number of cycle commuters grows every year.

Sustainability

Our community helps us practice sustainability by providing us with opportunities to work on environmental issues and take on projects that will benefit Canadians in some way. Although not an exclusive policy, we do seek out work that will generate meaningful benefits.

Teresa LeGrand began working on environmental issues in the 1980s, starting with a campus recycling depot project. By the end of the decade she was working on a number of environment-related files, including Environment Canada’s ground-breaking Go Green at Work employee-engagement program.

With Open Hands, Teresa has worked on a number of projects related to climate change, sustainable development, and other environmental issues. Living and working in Alta Vista helps us to ‘walk the talk’ through the small environmental footprint of our business operations and easy access to our clients’ offices by transit or cycling.

Open Hands has also given us a greater ability to give back to our community. We have chosen to allocate time to pro bono work on behalf of community organziations, and to become involved in school and commmunity initiatives.

This balance is reflected in our company values statement.