Sustainability Profile: Full Circle Parenting

1. What is your company's brand promise, vision or statement of values, and how does it relate to sustainability?

Our mission is to share ideas about styles of parenting that create sustainable relationships. We work with parents who want to prepare their children to create and maintain respectful, inspiring relationships throughout their lives, and to contribute at their full potential in our rapidly-changing world.

We offer parenting coaching and classes, and we maintain a presence online and through various social media as well as volunteer projects and efforts, especially speaking engagements, donations of services and interviews. Contact us to request a volunteer speaker or donation for your cause!

Full Circle focuses on the whole person, and the whole picture. It is a long-term approach that brings about significant short and long-term rewards for parents and children, as well as for our culture and the future of our Earth.

Full Circle Parenting is about creating physical, emotional, and social environments that empower children and parents to create sustainable relationships and culture.
2. How are your products or services environmentally and socially sustainable?

Our e-newsletter, classes, and website draw parents' attention to many facets of sustainability. In addition to our foundation of creating sustainable, solution-oriented parent-child relationships, we share information about developing socially sustainable communities and schools, as well as promoting a variety of businesses and products. We are careful to promote only products and services that serve or are of interest to conscious parents who are aware of and committed to social and environmental themes.
3. How do your suppliers create positive social and environmental benefits either through their products or through their community partnerships?

I do my best to choose small, local businesses to partner with, whenever possible. I also make an effort to develop and maintain long-term, respect-based relationships with those businesses and the people that I have contact with in each company. In most cases, I have sought out partners who are explicitly committed to green, holistic, and environmental themes, on a variety of levels.
4. How does your business minimize the environmental impact of its operations?

Since my business is run from my home office, we are very conscious of all the details that apply: using and reusing recycled paper, turning off the power bar for computer usage, choosing organic, locally grown/made, or second-hand products in all areas of our home, as well as recycling and composting everything possible. We also have a garden and have been converting our property from a complete lawn, front and back, to a diverse and child-friendly garden, moving towards all native plants. Our fence was built of untreated wood by a local small business, and stained with carefully-chosen stain which is non-toxic and environmentally sound. We use a rain barrel for our garden water, don't water the lawn, and water our plants with bath water or rinse water from the dishes. We use our car about twice a week, and always combine errands to minimize the distance traveled. We walk or bike to and from school every day, even when it's 40 below!
5. How does your business demonstrate ethical business conduct?

All of our services come with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If anyone is not happy with our services, we want to know why (so we can make sure it never happens again), and money will be refunded if requested.
6. What strategic community partnerships does your company have in place?

As our business is still quite young, we are still developing these relationships. We are an attendee of YEP (Young Environmental Professionals) and a member of REAP.
7. What policy or guidelines exist to support charitable contributions?

We have donated services to the Calgary Attachment Parenting Community, the Breastfeeding Challenge, Elizabeth House (home for pregnant and parenting teens), The Third Academy (school for children with special needs), and more. We are also strongly supportive of responsive night-time parenting, and we donate a speaker to groups of new moms on a regular basis.
8. How many people do you employ locally?

1
9. In what ways does your business demonstrate its commitment to employee health and safety?

I always try to stop working by 10 pm so I can get some sleep. I have also set up a health plan that makes sense for people who tend towards alternative healthcare choices and that can be easily expanded to include future employees.
10. In what ways does your business demonstrate its commitment to employee development and job satisfaction?

I make sure that I take advantage of any training opportunities in the areas of coaching, marketing, schooling, communications, or media relations, in order to keep myself focused, excited, and learning.
11. How does your business support employees to lead balanced lives and be active participants in their communities?

I usually work in the mornings, while my child is at school, and in the evenings, after she is asleep, but I also make an effort to include her in client and partner meetings whenever reasonable. I feel it is extremely beneficial to children to see and understand their parents' work, and I feel that children in our culture need to be present for more adult-focused activities in order to learn about how the world works. My little one has nursed while I phone-coached, as well as accompanying me to coffee shops and printers' where she has helped to choose the graphics for our website, posters, and business cards. She has also enjoyed playdates with the children of business partners, suppliers, and clients, as I worked nearby, and has accompanied me to many trade fairs, ever since she was an infant in a sling.