“We want to replace Google Search as the first place teachers go to find trusted resources for their classroom,” says Melissa Welsh. “The topics we’re discussing in our programs are happening right now. It’s not a YouTube video produced two years ago, or a textbook that was printed 5 years ago. It’s current information to help teachers spark discussion in the classroom.”

Pursuing their very own “Nature Netflix”, Nelson BC’s Live It Earth is turning scientists into storytellers and content creators, building online curriculum and resources for Kindergarten to Grade 7 students. They are developing the Live It Earth platform to improve the nature literacy of students and teachers by creating resources that allows them to meaningfully engage with every aspect of the world we share—environmentally and culturally. Live It Earth’s content is elevated by its dedicated inclusion of indigenous perspectives, vetted experts, as well as accessibility in both French and English languages.

Recognizing the strain that teachers were experiencing, especially during the pandemic, Live It Earth was determined to reduce the time it took teachers to build lesson plans. “Teachers are a group of heavily overworked and stressed-out individuals. The amount of prep time it takes to find relevant resources which are safe for the classroom is something that needed to be addressed,” explains CEO and Co-Founder Melissa Welsh. “There are a few problems we’re trying to solve through our platform and saving teachers time is one we feel really passionate about.”

Being able to produce these learning resources wasn’t always such a quick process, though. Originally, it took the team 2-4 months to create programs by streaming on location. Once COVID hit and students were no longer able to return to the classroom, Live It Earth needed to find a solution to continue providing valuable content. “We only had 7 days to figure out what we were going to do, otherwise we would lose our contracts,” recalls CVO and Co-Founder Mike Irvine. “We went from producing a program every few months to producing a program every week for nearly three months.”

Since its inception, Live It Earth has been more concerned with developing beneficial educational resources than hitting milestones found in typical tech companies. Demonstrating that commitment, all of the content they produce includes indigenous perspectives and is available in both English and French. “It was not a profitable decision but we knew that relevant French resources were sorely needed in BC,” explains Mike. “It was a risky move that we hoped would eventually pay off.”

After 3 years of following that risk, Live It Earth signed an agreement with Focused Education that has enabled them to bring their content to every single school in British Columbia. Melissa says that their library of bilingual and Indigenous-minded programs contributed heavily to the success of this deal. But, while the agreement opens a lot of doors for Live It Earth, the team is making sure to proceed with caution. “The thing with growth is that it means you have more to lose,” says Melissa. “That’s why we’ve committed to growing slowly—we don’t want to push as fast as we can in every direction.”

“We have the opportunity to reach 331,000 students and we want to respect that,” adds Mike. “We need to make sure that we’re doing deep reviews of the resources and content we’re creating, that our story partners are abiding by our standards, and that we’re including multiple perspectives when we handle controversial topics and create opportunities for equitable conversations.”

In pursuit of that goal, Live It Earth is partnering with Leona Prince, a member of the Lake Babine Nation and liaison for 14 First Nations communities, to share their stories using augmented reality (AR). As a part of that project, Mike is planning to collaborate with the schools and provide resources that would allow students to make their own AR stories.

“We’re also releasing an Arctic Series soon that incorporates different countries, indigenous youth from those countries, collaborations between researchers and students, and cross-cultural exchanges,” Mike continues. “Both of these projects have involved a lot of trust building over several years. We can’t wait for them to come out!“

Larry Smith and Robin Jones, Executives-in-Residence at Accelerate Okanagan have been working with Live It Earth’s leadership team through the RevUP program, developing their skillsets as they continue to grow and move further into the education industry. “They have a very unique product that enriches the education of youth around the natural world,” says Larry. “It’s been interesting to see Melissa and Mike build their sales and leadership skills through RevUP’s coaching in order to bring in some important deals and solidify their company.”

“We went through a painful period when we realized our sales cycles were going to be much longer than expected and, for the first time, we weren’t hitting our goals,” explains Melissa. “Larry and Robin were able to facilitate some difficult conversations that we needed to have. We grew up significantly during that time because of their mentorship and support. Our company will be forever stronger for it.”

“Being an entrepreneur, you always need to wrestle with your ego, and sometimes you need someone to point that out to you,” adds Melissa. “If you’re all by yourself and you don’t have mentors, you don’t know that it’s normal to have challenging times. It was important to have Larry and Robin normalize that painful period and help cement these important lessons for us.”

As Live It Earth continues to introduce impactful content to classrooms across BC and expand into Ontario’s school system, they are challenging themselves to further improve the team’s efficiency. “We’re not looking to be more profitable, we just want to see if we can create a 32-hour work week so that we can all enjoy more time away from our desks,” explains Melissa. “We want to build a company with the discipline that enables us to sell it and with a culture healthy enough to keep us here for another 25 years.”

Connect with Melissa and Mike or learn more about Live It Earth.

“In business, you’re either a painkiller or a vitamin. A painkiller is something that’s costing you and needs to be fixed right away. A vitamin is nice to have but you’ll survive without it,” explains Angela Nagy, founder of GreenStep Solutions. “Sustainable practices used to be a vitamin. Now, whether it’s because of consumer demand, industry reliance, or because climate change is directly impacting you, it’s become a painkiller.”

GreenStep has been providing assessments, software, and certifications that support organizations as they seek to measure and improve their climate impact and sustainability efforts. By designing a self-assessment tool and building their own carbon footprint software, they are able to identify the current level of a small to medium-sized business’s impact and what actions they need to take. With their unique approach, GreenStep has been able to work with notable Canadian organizations such as Pela, Tentree, FortisBC and BC Hydro, and more recently has been supporting businesses as far across the border as China, Italy and Norway.

Since starting up in 2008, GreenStep has persevered as a “vitamin”. However, now they are acting as a painkiller creating solutions that enable businesses to recognize and rectify the impact they have on the environment. While more and more businesses embrace new sustainable practices, GreenStep’s founder Angela Nagy always knew this is where we were headed.

“When I was younger, I saw two choices for my future: Become a professional activist with Greenpeace or start my own business and save the world,” recalls Angela. “I chose becoming an entrepreneur because I knew I could tear down barriers, break rules and put myself on the bleeding edge of change.”

While working with GreenStep’s first consulting client, Sysco Kelowna, Angela realized that there was a gap in the sustainability-assessment market. While companies like Deloitte, PwC and McKinsey could evaluate larger companies, no one was providing affordable assessments to small and medium-sized businesses—especially the tourism industry. The critical piece? Turning the assessments into a tech resource.

“We want to make sustainability accessible by breaking it down into chunks that small business owners can use as a guide and develop an action plan that doesn’t require them to hire someone for tens of thousands of dollars,” says Angela. “We’re building these DIY tools that are either free—for those getting started—or feasible for small businesses.”

In 2012, Angela joined Accelerate Okanagan’s Venture Acceleration Program with an idea of how they could turn GreenStep’s assessments into a tech solution to find their product/market fit. It was during this time that Angela was introduced to Fraser Campbell, a mentor who would continue to lend his guidance even after she had left the program. “He was instrumental in helping me get through those times and fight for what I had worked for,” said Angela.

To facilitate its goal, GreenStep acquired carbon footprint software and a licensed sustainability program. A few years later, they wrote their own assessment criteria that organizations could use to determine their sustainability performance and compare their score against other businesses. The outcomes of this tool are then used by GreenStep’s team to support the business in pursuing certification for its sustainable practices or to develop recommendations and strategies to reduce its environmental impact.

This assessment has been recognized by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council and even led some destinations to make a game of their scores, “A tourism organization in Ontario has issued a challenge to their counterpart in BC stating that they’ll achieve a better score,” Angela laughed.

The criteria in the assessments are broken down into key sections that look at:

• Management of the organization
• Socio-economic impacts in areas like the labour force
• Local purchasing
• Natural and cultural heritage (from local artisans to indigenous culture)
• Environmental impacts
• And eco-efficiency (energy, water, waste and carbon)

While the internally developed self-assessment tool was gaining traction, the software they had acquired needed to be rebuilt in order to meet the needs of GreenStep’s audience. The added scope meant that the team needed to wait until it was easier to sell a tool l that would be used to determine a business’s carbon footprint based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Now, with so much growing interest in carbon measurement, GreenStep is bringing its carbon footprint software to the forefront of its offerings.

Even without a dedicated marketing or a sales team, clients are finding GreenStep. Positive referrals and search engine results have pushed Angela to focus on hiring more practitioners to keep up with the demand the team is facing. Though, this doesn’t come as a surprise to Angela, “the business case for sustainability is an easy one to make. Even if you don’t care about the polar bears or the ice caps, it just makes business sense.”

From supporting businesses year after year (and attending Climate Reality Project training with Al Gore), Angela is well-versed in the organizational benefits that come from sustainability, “A business can expect to see around 5% savings per year on its energy-related costs. Often these don’t require a lot of upfront investment and, with available rebates combined with GreenStep’s EcoFund program, no upfront cost. Depending on how aggressive the business is, over 5-7 years, that savings can reach up to 75%.”

By examining a business’s purchasing policies, there may even be an opportunity to save 30% in waste reduction. For example, most organizations utilize single-use plastics for things like utensils or cups. Not only is there a lot of cost in resupplying these items but there is also a cost associated with having someone haul all that garbage away.

An unexpected benefit can be a business’s increase in revenue. By offering new products or services that focus specifically on sustainability in some way, there is potential to see a 10% increase in sales. This is because, when given two similar options, customers will choose the one with the option that has a positive impact on the environment even if it costs a bit extra.

The last benefit that Angela explains is employee productivity, attraction and retention. “It can be difficult to measure but there is a ton of research that shows people want to work with companies that align with personal values and are making a positive difference. They’re more loyal, they stay longer and do better work.”

As GreenStep continues to grow and gain traction, Angela has been grateful for the support she’s received from her mentors and local networks. During her time in the W Venture program, she had the opportunity to work with a group of women entrepreneurs, share experiences and lend support. Notably, Shannon Susko, author of the 3HAG Way, delivered training that came at just the right time. “She took us through the concepts from her book and then I locked myself in a hotel room for a few days and started planning the business in 3-year cycles,” recalled Angela. “W Venture was really significant in helping me to manage GreenStep’s growth over the last few years. The timing was perfect.”

Now, GreenStep is looking to hire an international team so that they can better manage their incoming clients and proactively target businesses around the world. However, Angela is adamant that GreenStep will always be a Canadian-based company and that she is enjoying the support found in the Okanagan. “There’s an amazing entrepreneurial community of great people to be inspired by. Being a part of the Women’s Equity Lab and their awesome network of women—who have spent their entire adult lives building really successful careers for themselves—has been amazing.”

Looking to the future, Angela is eager to expand the audience for GreenStep’s assessments and introduce new tools that can bring sustainability to more industries. Though she does hope to see a transition in why businesses seek out GreenStep’s services from being predominantly financial and operational motivated to doing what’s right for the planet.

Angela references a cartoon by Joel Pett that illustrates her sentiment:

Connect with Angela and learn more about GreenStep Solutions.