In this inspiring episode of Logistics with Purpose®, presented by Vector Global Logistics in partnership with Supply Chain Now, hosts Enrique Alvarez and guest co-host Paul Courtney, President of Courtney Agencies, sit down with Rob Safrata—entrepreneur, CEO, and leader behind several purpose-driven companies including Novex Couriers and Fuse Power.

Rob shares his journey from a young entrepreneur to a changemaker committed to building businesses that serve people, planet, and profit. Together, we explore how sustainability can be integrated into every layer of operations, why B Corp certification is such a powerful benchmark for ethical business, and how leadership rooted in purpose can spark meaningful transformation across logistics, delivery services, and beyond.

You’ll hear insights on:

• How purpose-driven leadership fuels long-term success
• The benefits—and challenges—of building sustainable companies
• The role of B Corp certification in validating ethical practices
• How technology is shaping the future of sustainability
• Practical advice for leaders who want to drive positive change

If you’re passionate about sustainability, ethical business, or the future of logistics, this episode will leave you inspired and empowered to make an impact in your own sphere.

Additional Links & Resources:

• Connect with Rob: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertsafrata/
• Connect with Paul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-courtney-81a20319/?originalSubdomain=ca
• Learn more about Fuse Power: fusepower.com
• Learn more about Courtney Agencies: www.courtney.ca
• Book: https://www.amazon.com.mx/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1936891026
• Impact Assesment B Corp Link: https://embedded-bia.bcorporation.net/
• Learn more about Logistics with Purpose®: https://supplychainnow.com/program/logistics-with-purpose
• Learn more about Vector Global Logistics: https://vectorgl.com/
• Subscribe to Logistics with Purpose: https://logistics-with-purpose.captivate.fm/listen

This episode was hosted by Enrique Alvarez and Paul Courtney. For additional information, please visit our dedicated episode page at: https://supplychainnow.com/how-purpose-driven-leadership-transform-logistics-sustainability-lwp143

Welcome to Logistics with Purpose presented by Vector Global Logistics in partnership with Supply Chain.

Now we spotlight and celebrate organizations who are dedicated to creating a positive impact.

Join us for this behind the scenes glimpse of the origin stories, change making progress and future plans of organizations who are actively making a difference.

Our goal isn't just to entertain you, but to inspire you to go out and change the world.

And now, here's today's episode of Logistics with Purpose.

I'm your host, Enrique Alvarez.

I'm managing director of Vector Global Logistics.

And of course today we have an amazing guest.

But before we introduce our guest, I also have a really, really interesting co host.

This is the first time that I'm doing this with a really good friend of mine, Paul Courtney.

How are you doing today, Paul?

Enrique.

I'm doing great, A little bit jet lagged, just got back from Vietnam so maybe I've had better days.

But I'm super excited to be here and I think this is my first PODC cast ever, so go easy on me.

Well, no, I think this is all going to be.

We're highlighting our good guests today and before we go into that, I'll let you, Paul, introduce our guest, Paul Courtney, of course, president at Courtney Agencies, a B Corp certified customs broker and freight forwarding company.

Paul, I don't know if you want to share something or a quick anecdote as of how we met and also a little bit more about you and your company.

Yeah, no thanks, Enrique.

Yeah, I think we originally met at a B Corp. Conference in Vancouver.

And then, I mean, I remember Enrique, he was the master networker.

I remember you there, you're chatting everybody up and it's like, hey, I gotta meet that guy.

And then I guess in the springtime or last year sometime I was back east and I dropped in on Enrique in his office in Atlanta and we went out for lunch and we had sushi.

I remember that.

And I remember we both play soccer.

So we're both like old soccer players that continue to try to do that.

Anyway, looking forward from the World Cup.

That's right.

Any predictions?

Paul, who do you think is going to win the World Cup?

And we'll air this show right after the World cup when you're right.

Oh, I don't.

Team Canada.

Canada.

All right.

Canada.

All right, that would be interesting.

But go ahead.

Without further ado, let's introduce our great guest of today.

Great.

Yeah.

Well, first of all, I guess I would say that, you know, when, when our company was, you know, embedding a social purpose and, and going through the the B Corp process, Rob's name came up a lot.

And I have to admit I've never actually met Rob, but my wife is a friend of Rob and his wife Jacqueline.

And Rob's kind of a hero of ours, whether he knows it or not.

So it's my great pleasure to introduce Rob Sifrata, a fellow Vancouverite based of three social purpose and climate leading companies, Novex Delivery Solutions, coast to Coast Experiences and Fuse Power Management.

Rob, thank you so much for joining the podcast.

It's a pleasure to having you here.

Well, let me put it this way.

I always learn something when I'm speaking with others.

So I am very much looking forward to today speak to other B Corp members especially.

It's a very intentional group, very special group because of the values that we manifest, that we exhibit and it's a great way to do business, better way to do business.

So I totally agree with you, totally agree with you.

And we're looking forward to learning a lot from you and from you have done from your career.

But before we dive into it, we're going to start with something that's been come a feature now which is our Quick questions.

So if you can respond with whatever the first thing that comes to your mind is, I'll ask you a set of quick questions questions just to kind of get to know you better.

Yes.

And do you have a title for these questions?

If you, if these are your.

We very creatively call them the speed questions, we should come up with a title and maybe, maybe we'll do that after this interview.

All right, so first one is what's one thing you can't live without?

Health.

Favorite hobby?

Well, hobbies.

I'm going to comment on some of these as a not so much a quick answer in that I've been fortunate to love what I do.

So my favorite hobby is turning not every idea, but some ideas into something real.

What's your favorite book?

The War of Art, not the Art of War.

Thank you very much.

We'll have to put the link to that book.

I don't think I've heard about it before.

It goes along with my answer about turning ideas into reality.

Great.

Well, Rob, thanks for the, thanks for those answers.

Some interesting, interesting answers for sure.

Now we'd like to hear about your background, maybe tell us a little bit about, about where you grew up and your childhood and that sort of thing.

I grew up in Toronto, Canada.

My father immigrated from Czechoslovakia.

He escaped, as he told me, and there may have been other reasons, but he really couldn't abide by living in the Communist regime.

The Russians took over.

My mother's from a farming town north of Toronto, which.

And the reason I mentioned that is because, you know, we grew up in a city and so this squeaky clean, wet behind the ears, kids could go up to the farm often in the summer, our weekends, winters, and, you know, and throw things and meet our extended family there.

And that was really good for city kids.

My parents joined a ski club in Collingwood, and there are a few ski clubs there.

And I, at the age of nine, fell in with a group of other keen skiers and a wonderful coach.

At the age of 16, I made it onto the Canadian ski team, which is a very, very young age.

One other fellow who better known than me, much better known than me as far as skiing, we're from the same ski club.

He's two younger than me, and his name's Steve Podborski.

And some people listening will know what that means.

Yes, he was really the most successful crazy Canuck downhill racer.

I did my share of downhills, but I preferred Giant Song Song.

So I'm the only uncrazy Canuck.

And the reason I mentioned that is it's a lot of my learning from the age of really sort of 13, when it was pretty heavy duty.

And then at the age of 15, 16, nine months a year, I would be away somewhere skiing, including Latin America or New Zealand or Europe.

Of course, we'd always go where it was cold, Canadian.

And I retired.

I quit when I was 20, which also was young.

But, you know, in the 70s in Canada, and certainly in eastern Canada, the word entrepreneur was not a good thing.

And in Toronto, anyway, eastern Canada.

And so that was hard because I didn't really know what I wanted to do except to do things to make things come to life that do things a little bit better.

And I did work in a large company for four years, a very large Canadian company, in their corporate office.

But it wasn't suited for it, as you can imagine.

And yet I'm glad I did it because I learned what it's like for others who work in those large companies.

And now I deal with a lot of those people, and I'm not frustrated by them.

They're great, hardworking, brilliant people, and they have a culture or a set of rules that they need to work within.

And so I understand that, and I think it's important to know the difference.

You know, we're B Corp people, so we work with a lot of people who aren't and who that's not their focus or their interest.

And that's okay.

That's okay.

We need to work with those who.

I like to work with, those who at least are interested, curious or keen.

And if you remember, I'm going to hope people will look this up.

Ray Anderson, who was the owner of Interface Purpose, how could I ever forget?

And I met Ray Anderson a few times, and if people go online and look up and him speaking, he's really brilliant.

But early on in the, I think that certainly the 90s, he decided that he wanted to reduce the footprint of Interface carpet and made a bold statement that they would be carbon neutral in the future.

But I met Ray a few times and I asked him once, what do you say to the naysayers?

What do you say to those people who don't, aren't interested, don't believe or in fact think it's.

It's not true.

He just said, I don't, I don't, I can't, I can't, I can't.

You know, I'm never going to.

I'm not able to overcome their viewpoint.

So I like to work with those who are interested.

And I think for the purpose of this, this podcast that's really important is to find your people to work well with those who you can work well with and to move things forward and hopefully infect others along the way.

Do good things, do good works.

And so my background has been a lot of that, been a lot of that I've been involved in in other companies that I've started.

I've purchased 38 companies in three different industries, not 38 different, but, you know, a platform.

And then one of them, number 24, and the rest were in a couple of others.

And I just love the people that I meet through these companies or that I get to work with.

And that's one of the questions maybe I could have answered is when I wake up in the morning, I truly look forward to who I get to work with.

And isn't that.

Aren't we lucky?

Aren't we lucky?

Absolutely.

I will also, because I could talk forever and I shouldn't, but I have this, these robisms.

And one of them is the great thing about being an entrepreneur is at least you get to live your own personal.

You don't have to live someone else's.

And that's so true.

We can definitely relate to that.

And before we jump into your career, because I know Paul has a couple of questions there.

Is there like any specific story from your early years, kind of like that shape who you are now, is it either from your dad escaping or you while training?

It's part of this key team.

I mean, is there something that you can remember that then said, well, this is the attitude I had and that's why I ended up as a successful entrepreneur.

This is why I ended up buying all these companies and we'll talk a little bit more about those.

Of course, down the road.

I can connect a few dots, if you will.

And I actually like to say that I don't connect dots.

I collect a lot of dots and when I collect enough of them, everyone, it's obvious to everyone what the picture is.

So I'm very curious.

But my father was very entrepreneurial and so that helps at the dinner table.

And I just thought that's what people did.

Quite frankly, I didn't, you know, I didn't know what it was like to work in a big company.

I never aspired to it.

I thought, okay, that's interesting.

But I didn't know what I saw myself doing.

But having that around me was, was helpful.

Also on the ski team, no one holds you back.

They say, hey, how well can you do, you know, and every day it's how can you be 110%?

How can you be better than yesterday?

How can you do more?

There's never any guideposts.

And that mindset has stuck with me and it served me sometimes well, sometimes not well when I try too hard and not aware of things that I really shouldn't even be trying perhaps, but those were part of my influence and then I can wrap it up with a bit of a story.

I mean I, I did projects when I was young, but the one to tell the story, I was 16 and Robert Redford, who passed recently was in the movie the Great Gatsby and he had an all white tuxedo.

And I was thinking a bit of a dandy and was going to my first formal, I thought, well, I'm going to get an all white tuxedo.

That's how I'm going to go.

And I went downtown Toronto to a, you know, formal rental place which, you know, you don't see 16 year old there.

Not many people that are older and I'm in there with, you know, my pimples and sweating and feeling out of place and nervous and I'm looking in the brochure and I don't see an all white tuxedo.

Then finally the salesman comes over.

Can I help you?

Well, perhaps I was hoping to get an all white tuxedo.

I said, he Said, oh, we have them, we just haven't done the brochure yet.

Okay, great.

So he, let's proceed.

So he measured me up, but you know, I'm going to come back in two, three weeks to get it.

And then at the end of it I said, can I speak to, to the manager?

And he said, is something wrong?

I said, no, I want to print the brochure.

And I did.

You know, I just, my father, a really good friend of our families, ran a pretty big printing business.

So I just knew that I knew I could find to figure out how to do it and get some help.

And I went upstairs and I asked the guy, he said, no, we haven't put the bid out yet.

And I said, well, I want a bid on it.

And I did it.

So it's just, who would do that?

I just thought that was normal.

I thought that was natural.

It's an attitude, I think.

Yeah.

And to me it was filling a need.

I think in many cases I just try to fill where there's a need or.

That's great.

That's awesome.

Awesome stories, Rob.

Thanks.

So your journey.

Talk about your education a little bit.

Your journey reflects a remarkable commitment to lifelong learning.

From earning your BA at Western University, to completing MIT's entrepreneurial master's program, to Stanford's Technology and the Future of Business, and most recently IMD's High Performance Leadership Program through YPO.

How have these experiences shaped the way you lead your companies and prepare for the future, particularly when it comes to business, innovation and sustainability?

When I quit racing, you could do a three year BA at Western.

And for me it was like high school.

I, you know, I did high school, but I just kind of raced my way through it, if you will, summer courses and whatever.

Lots of help from the teachers, but you know, university.

I tried one of every course and I wasn't interested in any of them, quite frankly.

And I wasn't good at it it either.

I hadn't really learned how to study, how to test, how to, how to do essays, you know, I hadn't really learned.

And yet there's this phrase, this sentence from McLean's I'm married to a woman who's a PhD.

So you know, A students teach B students to work for C students.

And I was a B.C.

a B and C student.

But you know, I often wonder is, you know, are C students entrepreneurs?

Because they don't get hired.

You know.

They don't have an option maybe, or they're off doing other things.

So when I was in university, I was running a business, I actually was.

And I was doing a mail order business for competition, padded skiwear, which is kind of new at that time.

And I was, you know, I go to a library and have four hours, think, okay, I'm going to work on my history paper.

And about 25 minutes into it I was phoning my supplier, you know, writing the brochure, redesigning something, you know, whatever, for three and a half hours.

So that was a bit of a clue as to what was going on.

And you know, I'm glad again, I'm glad I did university because of, you know, I did learn a little bit better how to think, how to research, how to communicate, that kind of thing.

And I made, met some good friends there too.

But these other courses, you know, I hope people find, you know, once a year at least something that's not one day, but a few days or a week, something they're, they're eye opening and, and you know, coming back from them, it's okay, I've got five years of ideas or work here.

Which ones am I going to do?

So the MIT was, you know, it's grandly titled the Masters of Entrepreneurship, something like that, and it truly was.

And it was hosted by MIT at Endicott House, which is an off campus, beautiful spot.

But it was three years, one whole week.

Each year the same 90 people from around the world, young entrepreneurs and the people they bring every year to speak and teach is phenomenal, phenomenal.

I still, one of my best friends is a fellow that I met there and many people have built tremendous businesses and the alumni from that.

I just think it's a gift to yourself and the people you work with as you go along to be re upping and sticking with the few things we knew when we were in our twenties.

And now I'm almost glad.

I don't know what you guys, I'm, I'm going off this AI thing.

I'm glad I'm not 25 or 30 right now.

I had no idea.

Yeah, you know, some of our friends, kids, they talk about their work and go, it's not AI proof in five years, I don't have a job.

They know if it is or not AI proof.

Absolutely.

Well, and thank you very much for sharing that with us, Rob.

I mean, you founded and led companies across very different industries.

Right.

Which gives you a very complete set of tools.

And for example, you founded Novex Redefining the Sustainable Delivery for more than 24 years.

Then you went on and founded coast to coast experiences.

16 years strong in the travel and experiential sector.

And now you started fusepower Management which focuses on the EV grid space.

What seems to be the common thread that connects these ventures under your leadership and purpose driven vision?

Well those ones again that's kind of the call it the second half of my career, you know, I was doing technology things and non tech things before then starting companies and by the way I didn't start Novex nor west coast to coast, I bought them.

And so they already had a fair bit of momentum which is great and though we did grow them recently.

But the common thread there is triple bottom line.

People plan and profit and in that order.

That's where I connected with B Corp. And again I give credit to others and in this case my Jacqueline, my spouse, partner of over 41 years now she's very much environmentalist.

She's the founding chair of Eco Trust Canada which is a US based, a very well known US based group.

And she's the founding chair of ecotrust.

When I bought Novex Courier she turned to me and said why are you buying that polluting business?

And it's a local same day delivery business.

So our footprint has been reduced by over 59% as a delivery company.

So we're very, very proud of that.

So that's what the triple bottom line, the values, the social part, the environmental part and it re, you know those as we know, raise all boats.

I have to say leadership too.

And I would, I would like to say this quickly.

When I worked with this really large company in the early 80s, I always joke the day I arrived the stock started going down and four years later the day I left the stock started going up.

But that meant was it's true it was a bit of a recession in that industry is that it was a go go company and then it wasn't and they didn't know how to manage like they, they didn't, they weren't trained managers.

Get her done.

Wonderful growth business people.

And so I really thought a lot about leadership.

And you know if you go back to you do what?

I say leadership, you know, feudal owner, I own you.

Or then fast forward command and control, which certainly my parents grew up with.

And then there was inspirational leadership.

That's not the right term, but, you know, there was the rah rah sor thing, which is good, but it doesn't last long.

And then people can look up servant leadership, which I think is a very complete, well practiced, studied, written about all.

That kind of thing.

And after I left this company, I said, leadership is important.

How you run something is important.

So I came across servant leadership.

So it makes my job a lot easier because if you work for me, I say, okay, who are you?

What do you like?

What are you good at?

How can I help?

And I can help because I can bring you resources or suggest things or so that's nice.

That's pretty good.

And I recommend that to a lot of people.

And then I found something, and I'm not.

And if you look it up, you don't find it.

I call it cause leadership.

And this is my own kind of collecting the dots.

I.

There's a fellow named Lance Secritin.

He's a Canadian author and consultant now, and he wrote a book about leadership.

And he turned around, he said, well, who are the great leaders?

What were they like?

And, you know, Mahatma Gandhi and.

And Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King and Jesus, you know, he.

He thought, okay, what did they do?

Well, the short answer is they represented the cause.

They represented something bigger than them, something truly important and impactful.

And so people flock to them.

You know, people.

It's a.

It's obvious to people.

So I think a combination of servant leadership and cause leadership are marvelous, that we can identify what we're doing and whatever.

What we're all doing together is something bigger than ourselves.

And what it does is it self selects who shows up too.

You gentlemen could talk to me about this or more, I'm sure, but I did want to just connect that flow and have people think about.

And if you look at servant leadership closely enough, there is a, like, I think it's the fourth segment has to do with purpose and cause.

Great.

Rob?

Yeah, we've.

We've been a customer of Novex for many years, so certainly, you know, great company.

We love it.

It's awesome.

And my next question, you've probably already actually answered most of my question, but I guess I would ask, like, what you learned at Novaks and, you know, around Green logistics.

You know, things like how did that impact, like, how you approached your subsequent.

Ventures and Paul I'm going to give a few comments, but I want to turn the question back to you.

Okay.

Because, you know, you're a rare bird in this industry as a B corp, and both of you, actually.

And again, it's just.

I call it unanticipated benefits.

Because I hadn't been in the delivery industry and because pillow talk is powerful.

Because my wife was saying, can't you do it better?

That was her question.

Can't you do it better?

And then hybrids came out.

I mean, you needed the tools school, right?

And hybrids came out in around 03.

So I thought, okay, yeah, that if we could get our drivers into hybrids, that would be a lot better.

We figured out how to do that.

I don't need to get into that unless for this purposes of this.

But then there were some unanticipated benefits.

Unanticipated benefits.

So we were able.

This small local symbiote courier company was able to get the federal minister of the environment when we launched with the first 20 hybrids in our fleet.

Now, that in itself is incredible.

And so he was there for about an hour.

He gave a nice talk.

There was a fair bit of media.

I went back to the office a few hours later and there was something palpably different.

We have about 18 people in the office and 100 drivers.

And the drivers aren't typically in the office too often.

And there was something palpably different.

And it was this.

It was pride.

They were proud.

They weren't a courier company anymore.

They were saving the earth or they were doing something good.

They were.

They had something better than.

There was pride.

So that's pride.

What's that word?

Worth.

Well, here's what it's worth.

When we were hiring and drivers, we got better drivers and better resumes.

Well, that's.

Our turnover went way down.

So in this industry, 35 to 40% annually is the turnover of drivers.

That's a lot of cost.

Finding them, interviewing them, training them, outfitting them, all that kind of thing.

First few months, when they're not as efficient sort of thing.

Ours is 5 to 7%, not 35 to 40%.

5 to 7%.

You can monitor.

You can.

And look at what you used to spend in hiring and all that.

And that goes way down.

But we give a lot of that money to the drivers to help them buy their hybrids and their electrics.

So that's it.

So they're just.

The turnover went down.

Better resumes, you know, sales went up.

Customers are way stickier.

Customers come to us when we don't even sell them.

If they want to be identified with a green company, they want to do good too.

So I could go on and on, but I'm going to turn it back to you gentlemen and say with the B corp, or, you know, what would you say?

Are the benefits unanticipated or other?

Go ahead, Paul, you go first.

I'm on the spot here.

You know, I definitely think there's a better cohesion for our team.

You know, we don't own assets per se, we don't own trucks and airplanes and all that stuff, but we ship stuff around a lot and, you know, we want to do it better.

And I think our team is committed to doing that.

And I think, like you found is that there is a bit more a sense of purpose amongst our people.

Right.

So I would, I would certainly agree to that.

I mean, I think, you know, there's, we can always do better.

I always talk to our team around, even base, what we do.

You know, we, we sit at a desk all day and we process shipments.

Right.

But it's like what you're doing in and of itself is a good thing.

Right.

Like, you know, you're getting, you know, we work on behalf of companies that fight fires as an example.

Right.

And just use some of the examples of what some of our customers do.

Just show, you know, there is a sort of base level of goodness of what we do.

But we, you know, we want to take it to the next level and, you know, measuring our carbon footprint, trying to reduce it has been a little bit more challenging around reducing because, you know, a lot of carriers other than Novex, there's still not a lot of options other than changing modes from air to ocean and doing things like that.

Right.

But I do agree with you, absolutely.

You know, I think there's a higher level of commitment from our team, lower turnover, all that sort of stuff.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, it's been, I of course agree with what you both have said and then I'll just add the fact that you can get better talent and you mentioned it, Rob, it's all about the team and the leadership of the people that you have in your company.

So if you can attract better talent because it's more purpose driven and it's clear why we do things and that attracts better people, then you end up having a huge competitive advantage because you will be having better people.

And of course, in a service oriented industry like Paul's and mine, it's all about the team that you have.

That's really our strength and so having more committed, purpose driven, ambitious people, visionaries, I would even say people that really want to make a difference in this world will work harder to get things done.

And that for me it's definitely one of those additional benefits that you get from being a purpose driven company.

I wanted to ask you, Rob, and maybe this is also for Paul, why the certification though?

Why do you think it's important to actually go from the culture and values that clearly you've been having since your dad kind of instilled those in you and your parents.

Why is it important to you?

Why the certification?

Why is that important?

Many reasons.

One is, you know, truth.

I think part of the frustration, I think you, we would all agree is the greenwashing.

The level of greenwashing and mistrusts and claims that it's incredible.

The still the level of.

I haven't heard that term in a long time.

Maybe there's a new one now, but it's just ridiculous.

You know, we had at Novex, So we were ISO so long ago now.

Does it 19,001, before that, before there was B Corp, we were an ISO rated environmental rating because we wanted outside, we wanted it to be validated, to be checked.

And by the way, it, it improved our business.

So, you know, both ISO or B Corp improve our business and claim to the world that, you know, someone else is certifying that.

So again, it's, there's a pride thing to it, but it's a validation improves our business.

The B Corp's excellent because the ISO in our industry, nobody knows it.

I mean, if you're, if you got a chemical plant or in your mining industry, people get it.

But in, you know, selling delivery people don't even know often what it is or means anything.

B Corp however, does and it's great that it's grown.

And Paul, how did you come to it?

Because ours was kind of almost necessary.

Yeah.

You know, so we became the first customs broker to be a B Corp in the world.

Nice.

Wow.

Congratulations.

And so that was a motivating factor.

But really, I mean, how did we come to it?

I mean, you know, you know, my wife Virginia, and she comes from kind of social purpose background for me.

You know, it's a family business and you know, certainly something that I absolutely enjoy doing, but I really felt I wanted to do more.

I wanted to do something good with this business.

Right.

And which is still, I think unusual in our space.

But you know, as far as the B Corp for Me really gave it structure, gave it discipline.

Right.

About how you get there, you know, and I just like that.

I like getting points, you know, it's a good system.

No, you're right.

It sounds somewhat simple and silly, but I think that you're absolutely right.

I mean, we didn't really know what we were getting into before we started this journey, but once we started going through all the different steps to get the certification, I guess unequivocally said that Vector is a much, much better company after going through the B Corp certification.

So it's one of those things that we didn't think that was going to be the case.

We always had this giving culture and purpose attitude towards business and we wanted to just have it certified by a third party provider so it wouldn't be just us bragging about how good we were, but we could actually show something to prove it.

And I gotta say, it was very tough.

Took us almost two years, but when we came out of it, we became much better.

We changed a lot of the processes.

We actually questioned many things that we were doing and we improved a lot.

So I'm looking forward to the, to the new certification because at the end of the day, the harder and more challenging it is, the better it should be for all the members.

Because that's kind of why we signed up for it.

Or at least we did.

Yeah, I think we just got recertified.

We're also in the process of certifying our US business.

I think we're pretty close on that as well.

Relations board.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Yeah.

How was the conference?

How did you find the conference?

I've actually never been to one.

I felt right at home, to be honest.

And it's just one of those conferences, another one, Conscious Capitalism.

You guys are familiar with the movement and the conference, the CEO summit.

And so when we first went to Vancouver, the only one I've been to and the B Corp was incredible.

Like kind of talking and hanging out with all these business owners that are kind of like minded and interesting and they're doing amazing, amazing things.

Feels very natural and effortless.

Why haven't you attended these conferences?

I think partly is I used to run the companies, but I more I build the companies.

So you know, our people who run it, Novex for instance, they go, they recertify, they're always keen to add more points and all that kind of thing, so.

But I should, I know, I love it.

So coast to coast brings purpose and sustainability into travel and corporate experiences.

And again, a sector that maybe not always associated with you know, environmental sustainability.

So very curious, like how did you integrate those values into the business model and how do you see sustainability reshaping, you know, the future of corporate travel and events and things like that?

Well, I'm glad that I think in the last 10 plus years, you know, hotel tours, there is an attraction people want, they pay attention to and value lower footprint experience.

They're aware of it.

Even you know, flying now.

I mean think of it, when you fly you can offset, I mean that wasn't around till maybe 10 years ago with coast to Coast, a tour bus company with about 120 tour buses.

And these are the day only tour buses.

They're not the ones that go long, the beautiful ones that go long distance, which you need to be really solid.

These are again kind of like the local same day delivery thing.

These aren't the best buses, always the nicest buses.

The electric buses then were all transit bus, low floor, not high floor where you can put things underneath and you know, be a little higher to see things.

Right.

But we found that they're way too expensive.

You know, they're so much more expensive and you've got to add the charging infrastructure.

How was I going to change over the entire fleet?

And so really, you know, within the business right away I said okay, well we have to add, had walking and biking tours, that kind of thing.

But you know we could have 120 electric buses and still don't by the way, I don't own the company anymore.

I sold it a year ago and but I've still worked with the company to electrify it and that's what led to fuse.

I said I can do this for everyone.

This is way bigger than our one tour bus company.

So now we work with many, many large fleets.

Not just tour fleets, but delivery fleets, the film industry, factory school buses of course to electrify them.

So we, you know, we did what we could in you know, how you spend your money or how you purchase, you know, what you purchase, just printing the paper, the lighting, you know, not flying, all that sort of thing.

So you know, you do all the things that we could but the big thing was still the electric buses.

And I would like to point this out.

So I've been working on this since 03 04.

So you know, he trained 200 people at a time for four days in Nashville to give the inconvenient truth talk.

And I gave 28 of those locally.

But that was still 15 years ago when people were, we don't believe in it or we're not sure and there just weren't the tool around.

I don't find there's as much pushback anymore on it inside a company or generally in conversation.

But so with west coast sightseeing again, when we got the two buses, even though there were only two out of 120 people were proud that we had them.

They love to use them all the time.

And the drivers always competed to use, you know, to be driving them.

The customers always love them.

Sometimes when they're.

There's a business part to this.

It always comes out to we can't just be people and plan it and not have a profit because then we're gone.

So they have to raise each other up.

I speak in terms of a business and let me show you the green and the social things I did to, you know, improve the business, you know, raise the sales, lower the costs and reduce the risk, et cetera.

So that's how I got into Fuse.

I'm going to do this for everyone.

We still needed better, more electric equipment for the tour bus side.

So I wasn't successful at doing that yet with ours.

And yet, you know, some of the large companies in our space, the hopping off business, they are implementing, you know, electric buses.

They are because the cities will put taxes, you know, congestion or pollution taxes.

So they go, can't go there if we don't have a electric.

So they, they're forced to.

But we'll talk about Fuse in a moment.

But in fact, having electric buses in the future will mean that it'll change the business plan or the business model of school buses, tour buses, of companies that don't have a high duty cycle.

In other words, they're not driving too far every day and they have a regular.

They know when their buses are back in base.

This will change the business model and improve it.

What I say to.

You'll love this, Paul.

What I say to fleet owners, the first thing I say, and I don't talk technology, I say, would you like your EBITDA to go up 2 to 4%?

Well, who wouldn't, right?

That seems like a very straightforward question, somewhat even tricky, but I know with the experience that you've had, Rob, in general, and with all the different companies, you must have had and faced and successfully overcome challenges Would you mind sharing one?

Like maybe one challenge that touched you the most could be personal or professional, something that our listeners can maybe relate to or.

Well, too many.

Oh, and still learning.

I'm sure.

I'm sure I would.

I think related to this topic change, and I heard this on the radio on the way in, you know, that that was related to advertising that, you know, you come up with a different idea.

The usual immediate is, oh, that won't work.

You know, why don't we just do it the way it is?

Or all the problems?

So there's always the naysayers to problems.

And those are important because you have to navigate those.

So learning to overcome those is what I had to learn.

And so with Novaks in the early days, you know, I had religion.

I was, okay, we're going to green this company.

Lesson 03.

I mean, the, the president.

Why would you do that?

Who cares?

I don't.

Whatever, you know, I don't even recycle.

And a lot of the people in the business, I became aware that they viewed the change as meaning they were doing it wrong or what they were doing wasn't right or not good enough.

And so they were pushing back.

So how did we overcome that?

We overcame it essentially by listening to them, but also education.

So I had the advantage of kind of knowledge they didn't have about the effects and impacts of pollution and that you could do it better and all that stuff.

We had to share that with them and all of them and have a conversation so that they decided on their own to come on board.

But as an owner, an owner of companies or if you're the leader, command and control, telling people to do something, they'll do it for a while, while, but then they're going to show you it won't.

It didn't work or they'll leave.

And so what's that about?

That was a lesson I learned and continue to employ.

I mean, maybe this.

I mean, were you the one that brought B Corp in and everyone else still scratching their heads?

They're going, why?

Yeah, I've been asked why many times.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, it's.

It's been an interesting journey as far as instilling it.

You know, these kind of philosophies in the company, in the people.

Right.

And.

And, you know, we kind of talked about the positive around, you know, that there's a, you know, I think a bigger commitment from everyone.

But, you know, on the other hand, not everybody sort of comes from the same headspace, I guess.

And so there's the challenge, I guess, of instilling the philosophy across the company and across as many individuals as you can, I guess, you know, but it's been an interesting journey and on our US Company now that where we're just close to getting certified, maybe even more challenging from a people perspective, we won't go there, but there's more challenging politics around this, perhaps south of the border.

And so it's going to be interesting for sure.

Absolutely.

And you're right.

I think it's actually going to be a couple of very interesting years as this continues to develop.

The purpose movement, B Corp, the just overall general policies that we're seeing right now.

So it'll be interesting for sure.

And I think, and I would claim that leaders like both of you are going to be needed even more.

So thank you for doing this.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us and our audience.

Speaking of sustainability in general, Rob, and what do you see in the future, like looking 5, 10, 20 years from now, what do you see?

And then what would you like to change?

What would I like to change?

I don't see it as a choice.

And politically, whatever people do or messages that come and go, it is a less expensive way to do things is a healthier, happier way of doing things.

I started talking earlier about, I still don't know what a ton of carbon looks like, but I do carry around a portable air quality monitor because people, you know, we have wealth, we have a lot more fires now in, in Canada and the smoke comes down in the States as well as Canada.

And people, they go, whoa, my breathing, you know, so that impacts people daily.

And burning fossil fuels from vehicles or, you know, in, in factories, you know, air polluted air kills more people than climate change and will for a long time.

And I think people, you know, are aware, get the direct effects of that.

So I have faith that it is going to move forward.

And some technologies are going to make incredible differences.

Let's just assume that in five plus years, before 10 years, there will be different kinds of batteries in cars.

So now they'll be way cheaper and they'll go twice as far.

And so it'll be like, yeah, of course I'm getting an electric car.

So it'll just happen, you know, technology or neither.

So what do I hope will happen?

And I hope that, you know, I think humans will be on this earth as long as the sun is in this.

I think that, you know, of all the businesses that you've purchased, Rob, and how would you, for founders or executives that you know, kind of want to embed, you know, sustainability into their operations.

Where would they start or how would you counsel them?

7.

Get an audit.

Have an audit of your business.

It's not expensive, you don't have to do that much work.

You just, you know, these, there's so many groups now that will come in and pull out your data and give you a report.

And that's worked so well because a business person can deal with a report and with numbers.

And here are the top three things to do and, and get after the low hanging fruit, it's, it's almost easy.

It's just do it, you know, walk forward and then watch for the unanticipated benefit, like notice, you know, some people in your business will just look, love it, others won't care, but they'll go along.

They don't typically fight it.

Some people do leave, but you're self selecting to something more enduring.

So just, it's easy.

Now get an audit, get the information, get the numbers and have fun with it.

Well, so once we're Novex, we focus on three things that we do with B Corp or the audits, whatever, right.

And we focused on of course the air pollution, you know, the GHCs, the cars.

That was the big, big thing.

And then it was, was paper and the heating in the warehouse or the, you know, the gas or electric heating.

And with the heating we had about a 5,000 square foot warehouse.

It was super high, I'd say an average 10 minutes an hour somebody was in it.

That's it.

And it used to be the lights were on all day and it was heated.

So we got a motion sensor for the lights, we turned off the heat and we got the guy a jacket.

That's it.

That was pretty easy.

Maybe a hat.

And some myths, you know, you talked.

About measuring and I'll just tell you a little story quick, is that, you know, when we were measuring our footprint and when we expanded the scope, I can Never remember scope 1, 2, 3.

I get confused by them.

But is measuring like if we're shipping stuff around the world, right.

You know, it goes by ocean, it goes by rail, it goes by truck, all that sort of stuff, we found that the company we use to measure our domestic footprint, footprint didn't understand the international part, didn't understand the transportation as much.

Right.

So we had to use a different organization to do that.

So you know, so I Guess it was a learning experience.

Right.

And live and learn to your point.

Earlier and then maybe we can just come full circle back to AI.

I think that this is not as hard as people might think it is.

Right.

I mean there's a self assessment on the B Corp website that we'll put the link to it.

But again, as Rob mentioned, as Paul confirmed, I think the first step for everyone out there that's listening to this conversation conversation and want to or is inclined to think that people plan and profit is a great strategy for your own companies.

Then yeah, conducting that self assessment or having a company come and give you a assessment is definitely the first step.

And Rob, thank you.

Thank you so much.

And Paul, great sharing this with you as well.

Yeah, it was fun.

Is there any kind of parting thoughts or call of action and I'll ask this question for both.

Go.

It's a pleasure having you both here.

Paul, any action items for our audience?

What would you like them to do?

It was a comment I wanted to make actually about because Rob, you had mentioned about greenwashing.

Right.

And you know, the B Corp process is a way to demonstrate that that's not what we're about.

I heard a new word and it's fairly recent word and it's green hushing.

I don't know if you guys heard this word.

And it's just at the risk of going there, I would say, you know, it's just given the political environment that a lot of companies are less willing to talk about it.

They're still doing it, they just won't talk about it as much.

Right.

Which is very unfortunate.

Right.

I think, you know, one of the things that, you know, we're a small company, our footprint is small, all that kind of stuff.

But we looked at it as like every little bit counts and our influence can be much bigger than our immediate impact.

So a lot of it is talking about it and influencing others.

Right.

And so that would be my parting comment.

It's a scary term right now and it's true.

I get it.

Yeah.

It doesn't change how we operate and we will operate, be operating in the States, but it's better business.

It makes this business model.

They should make more money and be able to proceed.

The only thing I would add if you're asking for party comments is because I did sort of study it or look at it a lot is, you know, the thing that makes what the term you want to use these days anymore, but greening your business or reducing your footprint, you know, the thing that's the highest predictor of its success is the fact that the leadership is engaged and it can start from.

Doesn't have to start with the leadership, but it really makes it much easier if they go, yeah, we're, let's go.

So to you, gentlemen, thank you.

Thank you to both.

Where could our audience reach out to you?

Rob, what's your best way of getting in touch with you?

Well, I would invite anyone listening that has a fleet of vehicles anywhere, especially in North America, to get in touch.

And for me, it's, it's letter R Saphrata S A F as in Frank R A T A at Fuse Power and would welcome anyone to reach out.

A number of the states as well have programs that are very welcoming to, you know, returning power from your electric bus, trucker car to the grid and they'll pay handsomely for it.

So you can improve your ebitda, your earnings to the company and, and as we all know, improve your marketing stance, all kinds of things.

Pride in your business and serendipity is a superpower.

So hopefully someone will get that.

What about yourself?

How can people connect to you?

My email address I think should be pretty easy to remember.

So it's paulortney ca.

Thank you so much.

And to everyone listening to this very engaging conversation, if you liked talking to Rob and Paul, don't forget to subscribe to Logistics with purpose and I'll see you on the next session.

Episode.

Thank you so much.