About Us
Sustainable Enterprise Alliance | 2203 Alta vista Dr | Ottawa, Ontario K1H 7L9 | Phone: 613.454.7732 | info@SEalliance.ca | www.SEalliance.ca
Statement of Purpose
Vision : Make sustainability easy, time effective and inexpensive for Ottawa Small Businesses.
Mission : To have 75% of Ottawa small businesses on a sustainable journey by 2030
Background
Sustainable Enterprise Alliance (SEa ) was founded in June 2010, designed by Ottawa entrepreneurs for Ottawa entrepreneurs.Incorporated in 2016 as a non-profit and launched ‘Loving Our Local" a consumer initiative and signed up over 60 members.
After a survey done in 2019 asking our members, “Despite the desire to be sustainable, what are your challenges?” Most answered, “We just do not have the time, money and it's confusing.”This clearly defined SEA goal is to make sustainability easy, time effective and inexpensive for Ottawa Small Businesses.
Sustainable Enterprise Alliance undergone a rebranding and refocus its process and newly introduced and promoted as “SEAlliance.ca ”
In 2020, SEAlliance.ca is focused on helping Ottawa small businesses on their sustainable journey, showcase their eco profile, green mission committeemen's and sustainability accomplishments. with our easy 3P Self-Assessment, validation process, Interactive action workshops, creating a community engagement for our common sustainable future.
As a SEA Member it means your business is on a journey committed towards sustainable practices that aims to balance People, Planet and Profit.
Why focus on Small Businesses
More than 3/4 of Ottawa small business are under 19 employees
SEA Community
One of the foundations of SEA is the belief in building a strong community of sustainable businesses.
This allows the sharing of resources and ideas to build something greater. It also enables members to demonstrate their creativity/innovations and to get referrals.
To ensure the best possible experience for our members we have consciously created a community which focuses on positive interactions, both at our events, and in our online community.
At the core of SEA approach are the following six principles:
1. Unifying Frameworks
SEA believes in using proven methodologies such as Permaculture and Affirmative Inquiry to create consistency in our work and the SEA community.
2. Positive Values
In every interaction SEA encourages positive interactions by focusing on positive values, such as asking for assistance or giving something to the community.
3. Celebration and Praise
It is important that we celebrate and praise the accomplishments of our members, so we do both in our online community and at our events.
4. Rituals
In addition to celebration and praise, we have rituals which help reinforce positive behaviours, such as formal celebrations when a member becomes certified in sustainability.
5. Invitation to co-create
SEA is a firm believer in collaboration so we actively engage with key members/partners/volunteers to co-create our events and new service offerings.
6. Super Participants
Key to a strong community is the recognition of the most active members. This includes inviting these super-participants to co-create events, give feedback on SEA governance and operations, as well as identifying new service offerings.
Our Team
The Board - Executives
Prasanna Siva
Secretary
Prasanna Siva is a co-founder of the Sustainable Enterprise Alliance. It was an idea inspired by the professors at Algonquin College’s Green Business Management Program. He leads a double life balancing his engineering day-job with his interest and deep belief in helping individuals and organizations walk down the road to sustainability. Technical expertise ranges from energy audits, software design, circuit design, test as well as quality assurance. He was a partner at MojaveNorth.com a software design firm specializing in class management and scheduling software.
Through his over fifteen years of managing complex projects he is able to clearly define milestones and lead teams to achieve business and technical project targets. He is a quick study who welcomes new opportunities and challenges.
He also is a teen-youth facilitator at the a local spiritual and religious centre as well as audio engineer and go-to person when things need to get done.
Guy Souliere
Chair
Co founder of Sustainable Enterprise Alliance
Guytel.ca since 1982 and Ecoace.ca in 2010
Guy Souliere is a bilingual entrepreneur and technician with over 39 years experience in telecom and business sales. He is an expert at providing hands on service catered to specific needs. A self-starter, Guy began in service, retail, small business, then diversified his portfolio with government telecom service and procurement, and creating a government waste diversion initiatives.
Guy works tirelessly to create a business culture for sustainability, continuous improvement and blurring the lines of fun and work. Dedicated to personal growth to teach lean and inspire, Guy is always looking for new learning experiences to help better serve his clients, community and environment.
Guy is community minded, focused on improving his community is, in part, what inspired the creation of the Sustainable Enterprise Alliance. in 2019 a Professors at Algonquin the green business management course connected him with other, like-minded students in his class. Guy is also a key participant of the Biodome initiative at Brewer Park Community Garden aimed at encouraging learning and inspiring collaborative study.
Henry Schroder
Vice Chair
Henry Schroder was the Director of Energy Monitoring and Energy Management for the largest bakery company in Canada even building a bakery in Winnipeg heated by the waste heat from the ovens.
Since 2010 Henry has brought that same skill to everything he does here at iSolara and does an amazing job of managing a growing team. He continues to provide talks at events to help people clearly understand what solar can do for them and what a good solar install is.
Kristina Inrig
Treasurer
Is the Founder of Sustainable Foundation Inc (www.sustainablefoundations.ca) as well as SEA, a green real estate and investment firm in Ottawa that promotes sustainable investing opportunities and sustainability consulting. She has extensive experience in green business and green finance. She also heads up GreenBooks, a bookkeeping social enterprise that supports sustainability initiatives in Ottawa. Kristina has worked extensively in the sustainability non-profit sector for the past 15 years. She is the Executive Director of Sustainable Eastern Ontario (www.SustainableEasternOntario.ca) and founder of the National Capital Environmental Nonprofit Network. She is the past Executive Director of Tucker House and past National Director of Greening Sacred Spaces, a program of Faith & the Common Good. Her main non-profit roles include NGO management, capacity-building, networking, partnership development, financial management, fundraising, and governance. Kristina is currently completing her Master’s in Philanthropy and Non-profit Leadership (MPNL) at Carleton University.
Warren Abar
Board member
A Professional Engineer started iSolara Solar Power in 2003 and worked diligently to use solar to displace GHG emissions
He first got involved in sustainability in his late teens and early twenties working on 'Save the Whales'. Since that time Warren has worked on several environmental projects to save 'wild' places and sponsors several environmental charities such as the World-Wildlife Fund for more than 30 years. He has stepped up several times including providing the funding to start the BC Sustainable Energy Association.
iSolara Solar Power was designed to be a sustainable company focusing on the social, environmental and economic aspects of running a business and purpose to combat climate change reduce our GHG footprint while helping our customers reduce theirs. leading by example with electric/hybrid cars for providing service. isolara plan to shift trucks to electric as they become available.
With more than 750 solar projects installed in Canada, iSolara is one of the largest solar companies in Canada received the OSEA Smartrapeneur Award for 2018.
Warren is committed to sustainable practices and sustainable businesses.
Kailey Oliver
Chris Element
Our Founding Members
Appleseed Farms
Aurora Environmental Consulting
BTC Consulting
BuildGreen Solutions
Cara MacMillan MBA
Carbon Solve Inc.
Cognivue Corporation
Chuck Mills Residential Design & Development Inc.
Credible Edibles
Cube Gallery
David Chernushenko – Green Economy Educator
EcoAce.ca
Eco-Source
Emile Péloquin, Fruits et Légumes Biologiques
Everything Music & DJ Services
EvolvHealth Ottawa
Exit Realty – Moving To Green Services
Five Winds International
Guytel Services Inc.
Greenvolution Inc.
Green Strokes Painting
Harun Rashid Green Business Consulting
Hilton Garden Inn Ottawa Airport
Homestead Organics
iSolara Solar Power
Jennifer Shepherd
Living Lightly Productions, Green & Gold Inc.
Loaves N Wishes
Mihai Sarbu
MojaveNorth Inc.
Moneca Kaiser Design Build
M.P. Lundy Construction
Natural Food Pantry
Neil Minshall Advertising & Designworks
Organically Gifted Inc.
Rainbow Natural Foods
Real Alternatives Inc.
RND Construction Ltd.
Rockhurst Careers Groups Inc.
Schroder Consulting
Stratos
Sustainable Behaviours Inc.
Sustainable Foundations Inc.
The Collective Conscience
The Delphi Group
The Healthiest Home Inc.
The Learning Catalyst
The Worm Factory
Thyme & Again Creative Catering
Wisdom Works Wonders
Workshop Studio & Boutique