Greater Toronto's Top Employers (2025) Magazine - Flipbook - Page 126
126
( 2025 )
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Ontario Shores is #RisingUp in care and sustainability
W
ith a prime
location on
Lake Ontario,
an abundance
of green space,
and waterfront walking trails,
Ontario Shores Centre for
Mental Health Sciences offers a
serene environment that combines
modern amenities with the
calming beauty of nature, notes
Doris Foster, director of support
services.
“We’re a mental health hospital,
and this environment is really
good for mental health,” says
Foster, who has worked at the
public hospital in Whitby since
2012. She adds that the tranquil
space makes it a unique
workplace for Ontario Shores’
1,400 staff and benefits patients
who live with complex and
serious mental illness.
“There’s a clinical reason why
we want to be good stewards of
the environment,” says Foster. “It’s
a gorgeous property and it makes
you feel good to maintain it – you
want to make sure you’re leaving
it in a good place for the next
generation.”
With that in mind, environmentally conscious staff at Ontario
Shores have launched several
greening and environmental
wellness initiatives, yielding
impressive results.
Foster points to the hospital’s
track record for improving energy
consumption and reducing waste.
Among 88 hospital buildings in
Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba and
New York State, Ontario Shores
has shown the biggest improvement in energy consumption. “It’s
Employees at Ontario Shores celebrate Canada Day together.
one of the things we’re most proud
of,” she says. “We’ve reduced
energy consumption by 28.9 per
cent and water consumption by
24.5 per cent.”
This has led to Ontario Shores
earning the 5% Club Award
from Toronto-based Greening
Health Care, a network of North
American health care organizations dedicated to energy and
greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The 5% Club Award recognizes hospitals that have reduced
their total energy consumption
by at least five per cent compared
with the previous year.
Other successes include a
67-per-cent landfill diversion rate,
the installation of three additional water fill stations to reduce
dependence on bottled water, and
the planting of 346 trees – one
for each inpatient – with support
from Canadian Trees for Life.
But perhaps what’s most notable
is that Ontario Shores’ greening
and environmental wellness initiatives have been entirely driven
by staff.
“This hasn’t been something
that the senior management team
spearheaded,” says president and
CEO Karim Mamdani. “There
are a variety of unique things that
Ontario Shores is doing, and it’s
being driven by the creativity of
our staff.”
“We not only look after our
clients – we also look after
one another.”
— Karim Mamdani
President and CEO
This bottom-up approach
reflects a company culture
that empowers employees and
fosters a sense of community and
belonging.
“We not only look after our
clients – we also look after one another,” says Mamdani, who joined
Ontario Shores in 2006. He adds
that the hospital’s organizational
culture is represented by a tagline:
#RisingUp.
“It’s about how, as an organization, no matter what the challenge
is, we’re there for our community,
for our patients and for each
other.”
This ethos manifests in many
different ways. Ontario Shores
supports staff by offering a variety
of programs, including free wellness workshops, psychotherapy
services, physical health programs
