Green Office Champions: Seal of Good Practice

1. Engage with Green Workplace: Contact Sustainable Community Enterprises, Inc. through greenworkplace.ca to become a client and learn about the Green Office Champions program requirements.

1. Review the Criteria: Obtain the full list of Green Office Champions: Seal of Good Practice criteria, which includes developing a green procurement policy and demonstrating sustainable office practices across key areas.

1. Conduct an Internal Assessment: Evaluate your office's current practices against the certification criteria to identify gaps in areas such as waste reduction, energy use, procurement, and transportation.

1. Develop a Green Procurement Policy: Draft and formally adopt a written green procurement policy — this is a mandatory requirement for certification and should reflect your organization's commitment to environmentally responsible purchasing.

1. Implement Sustainable Office Practices: Put in place the required practices across applicable criteria areas, engaging staff and management to embed sustainability into daily operations.

1. Compile Documentation: Gather evidence of your compliance with each criterion — this may include your written policy, photos, records, or staff sign-offs — to submit for second-party review.

1. Submit for Review: Submit your documentation to Green Workplace staff for second-party assessment. Staff will review your evidence and determine whether your office meets the standard.

1. Receive Your Seal: Upon successful review, receive the Green Office Champions: Seal of Good Practice, which you can display on your website, office materials, and communications.

The Green Office Champions: Seal of Good Practice evaluates office-based organizations against a set of sustainable workplace criteria administered by Green Workplace. While the full scoring rubric is not publicly published, the program is known to assess performance across several key sustainability practice areas common to green office programs.

Green Procurement Policy: Organizations must develop and adopt a formal written green procurement policy — this is a mandatory, non-negotiable criterion. The policy should address environmentally preferable purchasing across office supplies, equipment, and services.

Waste Reduction and Recycling: Offices are assessed on their waste diversion practices, including recycling programs, composting, and efforts to reduce single-use materials and paper consumption.

Energy and Resource Efficiency: Practices related to energy conservation (e.g., power management, lighting), water use, and overall resource efficiency within the office environment are evaluated.

Transportation and Commuting: The program may assess whether the organization encourages sustainable commuting options for staff, such as cycling, transit use, or carpooling.

Staff Engagement: Evidence that employees are informed about and engaged in the organization's sustainability efforts is typically considered, reflecting the program's emphasis on building internal capacity for ongoing improvement.

Assessment is conducted through documentation review by Green Workplace staff (second-party verification), not by an independent third-party auditor.

The Green Office Champions: Seal of Good Practice is a niche, regionally focused certification operating primarily within the Canadian — and likely British Columbia-based — small business and nonprofit ecosystem. It is administered by Sustainable Community Enterprises, Inc. (operating as Green Workplace), a nonprofit organization that has supported workplace sustainability since 2001. The program is best understood as a community-level green business recognition rather than a nationally or internationally scaled certification standard.

In the broader green business certification landscape, the program occupies a very small market position. It competes indirectly with more widely recognized programs such as B Corp Certification, ISO 14001, and BOMA BEST, all of which carry greater brand recognition, third-party credibility, and international reach. For Canadian organizations seeking a lightweight, accessible entry point into green certification — particularly those already engaged with Green Workplace's consulting or training services — the Seal of Good Practice offers a low-barrier pathway to formal recognition.

Demand for green workplace certifications broadly has grown alongside ESG reporting expectations and employee-driven sustainability mandates, but the Green Office Champions program has not scaled commensurately with this trend. Its second-party (self-administered) verification model limits its credibility for organizations needing to satisfy external stakeholders such as investors, government procurement bodies, or international clients. The program is most relevant for organizations prioritizing internal culture change and local community recognition over rigorous third-party validation.

The Green Office Champions: Seal of Good Practice was established in 2001 by Sustainable Community Enterprises, Inc., a Canadian nonprofit operating under the Green Workplace brand. The program was created to help office-based organizations in Canada — particularly small and medium-sized businesses, nonprofits, and government offices — formalize and demonstrate their commitment to sustainable workplace practices at a time when green business certification was still an emerging concept in Canada.

Green Workplace developed the program as part of a broader suite of workplace sustainability services, including consulting, training, and resources for organizations looking to reduce their environmental footprint. The Seal of Good Practice was designed to be accessible and practical, requiring concrete actions such as the development of a green procurement policy rather than complex technical performance metrics. Over more than two decades, the program has remained a community-oriented, second-party certification, reflecting Green Workplace's nonprofit mission to build sustainability capacity in Canadian workplaces rather than to compete with large-scale international certification bodies.