Our Vision

At Tepperman’s, sustainability is a promise and a commitment we make to create a healthier environmental future, driving us towards practices that ensure a better tomorrow. We believe in successful, sustainable business practices that value the importance of preserving and positively impacting our environment. Through our proactive actions that focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and minimizing waste going to landfills, Tepperman’s is excited to make a difference in the world today.

To learn more, check out our 2020 Sustainability Report.

Leading The Way

In 2020 we were the proud recipients of the Corporate Social Responsibility award from London’s Chamber of Commerce yearly Business Achievement Awards. This award recognized Tepperman’s for creating responsible business practices in an economic, social, and environmentally sustainable manner, while making a positive impact in the communities where we live, work and play. This award adds to the growing list of awards recognizing our dedication to the environment and communities we serve.

• 2019 Corporate Environmental Achievement Award from the Essex Region Conservation Authority
• 2018 Environmental Leadership award from the London’s Chamber of Commerce yearly Business Achievement Awards
• 2018 Impact Innovation Award from Furniture Today

Green Economy London

In 2021 Tepperman’s joined Green Economy London. This organization is one of seven Green Economy Hubs across Ontario supporting networks of businesses to set and achieve sustainability targets. We’re looking forward to collaborating and taking advantage of the wide variety of support this organization can provide us.

Environmental sustainability is part of Tepperman’s guiding principles and is strongly supported by the entire leadership team. Our Live4Tomorrow sustainability plan is an integrated approach to improve our sustainability practices in energy usage, waste reduction, staff education, and impact on our local ecosystems.

LED Retrofits

Ensuring that all of our stores are running on high efficiency LED lighting has been a priority for Tepperman's. When we started in 2015, we achieved a 71% reduction in lighting energy use that year alone. By continuing over the subsequent years, by the first half of 2021 we proudly attained 100% LED lighting at all of our retail stores and distribution centres.

Distribution Centres

Our distribution centres in London and Windsor use all-electric forklifts and have been retrofitted with motion sensors that only turn on the deep bay LED lighting when required to save even more energy.

TPO Membrane Roof

By installing a TPO membrane roofing system that efficiently reflects sunlight and reduces the urban heat island effect, Tepperman's was able to significantly reduce the HVAC energy needs in the summer months while making the interior temperature more comfortable for both employees and customers.

Energy Star

Through mandatory energy usage reporting in Ontario, the Energy Star program provides a rating on each of our building's energy ranking. Tepperman's is proud that four out of five of our buildings qualify for official Energy Star Certification with scores of 80 or better. This means that our buildings are more energy efficient than 80% of buildings in the same sectors.

Energy Star Scores

HVAC Controls

In the fall of 2020, we began retrofitting our existing HVAC rooftop units with advanced controls systems that will provide 25-50% energy savings at our two distribution centres.

This new system will also provide real-time usage feedback and monitoring, alerting us to any issues as they develop so that we can get the problems resolved before they cause any major disruption or damage.

EV Charging

Reducing our fossil fuel energy usage is something Tepperman's cares deeply about. We're currently evaluating how we can electrify our own company vehicles as the technology evolves and grows.

To help support our customers that have been able to take the leap to this next generation transportation technology we've installed electric vehicle chargers at all six of our locations.

Cardboard

With around 400 tonnes collected every year, cardboard is our most recycled material. We utilize in-house balers and have partnered with YOU, a non-profit organization helping the youth of London, to process the bales while providing valuable training and learning experiences to youth in their program.

Wood

Our wood pallets get collected by our waste partners and reused if they are in good condition. If they are not, then individual pieces are used to make new pallets. Other clean scrap wood gets utilized as a bio-fuel or chipped into mulch for use in gardens.

Polystyrene

More commonly referred to as Styrofoam, we use a specialized machine that applies large forces to cold-compress and densify our polystyrene packaging materials down to 1/60th the volume. Our partner at Second Wind Recycling collects and sends it to a processing facility where it can be used again to make brand new products.

Plastic

Our LDPE (low-density polyethylene) plastic films get compressed and baled using a specialized machine, similar to our cardboard. We’ve partnered YOU to process this baled material and find facilities that will recycle it like our cardboard.

Mattress

When our customers exchange their old mattress for a new one, we send it to be recycled at a specialized mattress recycling facility. The mattresses are broken down into their basic components and the materials are recycled to make new mattresses. In 2020 we diverted 86 tonnes of mattresses from the landfill.

Second Life For Furniture

Tepperman's and Habitat for Humanity have a deep partnership. We donate all of our exchanged or used furniture to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore organization, ensure they get a second life in a new home. We are donating around 15 tonnes annually to this great organization.

Pollinator Garden

In 2020 we began the creation of a large 2500 sq. ft. pollinator garden at our London location, with lots of support from various organizations, including London's own Pollinator Pathways Project, Ontario NativeScape, and the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority. In the spring of 2021 we were finally able to seed the area as well as plant plugs and some shrubs. As the London garden began to thrive, our teams built another 1000 sq. ft. pollinator garden in Windsor and 150 sq.ft. pollinator garden in Ancaster. Check back later this year for updates on how our bee and butterfly friendly habitats are developing!

Cleaning Products

In order to ensure a clean workplace while considering health and environmental impacts, we have recently switched to using the Tersano Stabilized Aqueous Ozone cleaning product across all of our stores. This stabilized aqueous ozone solution is attracted to viruses, soils and bacteria and quickly sanitizes and disinfects them. The benefits are that the sanitizer is made on-site from tap water and its only by-products are water and oxygen. It is as safe of a sanitizing product as one can hope for with no impact on employee and customer health during use or the environment from its disposal afterwards.

Water Monitoring

Water conservation is an important part of our environmental pledge. To help prevent unnecessary water waste, we’ve installed real-time water use monitoring sensors at five of our six stores. These sensors automatically notify us as soon as there is a leak in the building or if there is any other unusual activity is detected. They’ve already saved us tens of thousands of litres of water and hundreds of dollars in water costs.

Sustainable Forestry

Tepperman's is committed to the responsible use of forest resources, including the wood used in our furniture. Tepperman's therefore will work with our suppliers on an ongoing basis to eliminate wood from unacceptable sources and to progressively increase the amount of responsible wood – wood from certified and recycled/reclaimed sources – procured over time.

Tepperman's recognizes the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Eco-Certified Composite (ECC) Sustainability Standard as important tools to promote responsible forest management. We have a preference for sourcing FSC and ECC-certified wood furniture when it meets our requirements. Tepperman's is also firmly committed to avoiding wood from unacceptable sources, including:

• Illegally harvested or traded timber;

• Timber harvested in violation of traditional or civil rights;

• Timber harvested from areas in which high conservation values are threatened by poor forest management

• Timber harvested from areas being converted from forests to plantations or non-forest use

• Timber from forests in which genetically modified trees are planted

Through this policy, Tepperman's seeks to set a positive example for our peers and to do our part to protect the world’s forests.

ECC Certified

Our extensive collections of Sauder furniture are ECC certified, meaning that that all the wood used in producing these great products is sustainably sourced to an internationally recognized standard. You can read more about the ECC certification here.

Recycled Plastic

Our line of C.R. Plastics Products are Canadian made in Stratford, Ontario and manufactured using up to 100% recycled plastic. 

Reclaimed Wood

Our Madison County products are made with 100% solid reclaimed pine, for a beautiful and sustainable look.

Eco Foams

The foam inside our Decor-Rest furniture is manufactured with natural soya oils that are abundant, domestically grown and sustainable for a smaller environmental footprint.
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Eco Fabrics

The new Conserve Fabric by La-Z-Boy, Eco-Fabric from Decor-Rest and Beautyrest Harmony Lux mattresses use up to 30% recycled plastic water bottles in their upholstery. Talk to one of our sales representatives for more information on ordering one of these great products with these new fabrics.

FSC Certified Wood

This sleep chest is one of our most sustainable products. The foams are certified under CertiPUR-US and GOLS standards, the textiles meet the stringent OEKO-TEX Standard 100, and it is constructed using only 100% FSC Certified wood.

Climate change is a global issue that affects everyone and every thing on our planet. At Tepperman's, we know that although we can't fix the problem by ourselves, we can do what we can to reduce our contribution to it. By showing leadership with our initiatives to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions, we hope to inspire others to do the same, because it is only together that we can enact the change we need.

We are striving to align our emission reduction targets with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). The SBTi provides companies with a clearly defined pathway to future-proof growth by specifying how much and how quickly they need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. This is an extremely challenging target and we are currently working out the technical pathways for how we can achieve this goal.

We performed our first ever greenhouse gas inventory of our operations to establish 2019 as our baseline emissions year. This will help us better understand where we can make improvements on our emissions and track our improvements. Presented below are scope 1 and scope 2 data from our two annual greenhouse gas inventories. We’re currently still evaluating some limited scope 3 data, and look forward to incorporating it into future years.