business

Environmental Champions

Windsor chain wins award for giving
back to community, environment.

RON STANG SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

S

outhern Ontario’s largest furniture
company may be known for its
expansive stores in five cities and, in
hometown Windsor, its deep roots in the
community, stretching back 93 years.
What is less well known is its signifi-
cant charitable contributions and, more
recently, its almost unprecedented envi-
ronmentalism.
For its engagement, Tepperman’s
received the Impact Innovator Award,
presented by Furniture Today, a North
American trade magazine that covers the
furniture industry.

Giving back to the community start-
ed with Tepperman’s founder, Nathan
“Nate” Tepperman, who opened the first
store.
“He was a Russian immigrant and
had absolutely nothing — one of those
stories — and the better he did in life
the more he would give back to the city,”
grandson and current president Andrew
Tepperman said.
As the chain expanded over the years
that sense of giving grew with it, “which-
ever city we’re in, we treat it like our
hometown,” he said.

LEFT:
principles, one of them to be a
Tepperman’s has always been
Tepperman’s
“leader in environmentalism.”
a big supporter of the United
president Andrew
That led to an award by the
Way and backed local commu-
Tepperman in front London, Ontario, chamber of
nity initiatives.
of the emulsifier,
commerce.
One of its biggest com-
which converts
“That lit a spark in all of our
mitments has been to young
Styrofoam into
stores,” Tepperman said. “All of
people, giving customers the
pucks to be
a sudden, all of our staff started
chance to win scholarships for
recycled.
looking at every possible thing
their children. So far, the com-
they could do to help the envi-
pany has donated $640,000 —
$1,000 in seed money for children under ronment with our full backing.”
One employee realized the firm was
10, which grows several fold by the time
those children enter college or university. throwing away a lot of foam.The com-
pany went to a furniture chain in Texas
The store’s focus on kids extends to
where it had machines to emulsify foam
partnering with Junior Achievement
and create “pucks” that can be recycled.
to teach students in grade five about
Tepperman’s bought similar equipment.
business and, for high school students, a
Tepperman’s keeps track in real time
course on how to manage finances. The
of its waste diversion and is now up to
idea is to ensure young people know
87 percent, with a goal to recycle 100
how to manage money.
percent in time for the company’s 100th
The chain’s environmental conscious-
anniversary in 2025. Materials diverted
ness came more recently.
Tepperman and his brother Noah, the from landfills include cardboard, plastic
wrap and Styrofoam. Diverting wood
company’s secretary treasurer, traveled
initially proved tougher until a co-op
to Ann Arbor to meet Ari Weinzweig,
student “found a way that we can turn
co-founder of the famed Zingerman’s
wood to mulch,” Tepperman said.
Delicatessen.
The store combines merchandising
“He (Ari) has really mastered the art
or the science of creating guiding princi- with environmental consciousness.
ples for a company and getting the entire Customers entering stores are offered
tree saplings. “We buy thousands of
company to rally around those princi-
them and we ask the customers to go
ples,” Tepperman said.
back home and plant them,” he said. ■
The brothers came away with six

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November 15 • 2018

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