Brookfield Residential has seen a thing or two as it built 10,000 or so homes in its six decades in the city.

The company has helped shape the city as a whole by developing hundreds of thousands of lots in almost 70 communities.

“This history gives us a deep understanding of the needs and wants of our homeowners and community members, and we have successfully provided choices that have met the demands of Calgar-ians, while meeting city density goals,” says chief operating officer Trent Edwards.

“This experience brings with it learnings and rich knowledge that can’t be recreated by someone just entering the Calgary market. We are proud to have played an impor-tant part in making Calgary what it is today and to call it our home — it’s where we are headquartered, after all. We are one of the largest developers in North America, and we love being able to call Calgary home base.”

The firm started building in the city when the population was just 250,000 people. Edwards says Brookfield’s team is proud to have been part of creating vibrant and notable neighbourhoods such as Rosemont, University Heights and McKenzie Towne.

“With each community that we create, we provide another place for families to put down roots and belong to a neighbourhood,” says Edwards.

Brookfield collaborates with municipal leaders to ensure its

path is connected to the Municipal Development Plan, and the com-pany seeks to lead by example by providing housing that is afford-able and thoughtful.

“Our communities are mas-ter-planned, meaning they are thoughtfully considered from Day 1, with all decisions focusing on our customer first,” says Edwards. “The result is a community that will last the test of time, where people can work, live and play.”

Edwards says Brookfield’s lead-ership knows that shaping a city is not just about building homes and communities. That’s why the firm has taken a leadership role in major community projects such

as the Resolve Campaign to End Homelessness, in which the com-pany committed $1.1 million to build places for vulnerable people.

“We brought our industry to-gether, working with nine other builders who were all committed to the same cause,” says Edwards. “Together, we committed over $17 million toward this important initiative.”

Brookfield also partners with organizations such as the Shel-don Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre, Habitat for Humanity and the Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter, as well as working with the University of Calgary, University of Alberta, SAIT and Mount Royal

University to provide access to new avenues, elevate the trades indus-try and invest in education.

Edwards says partnering with Calgary Economic Development also gives Brookfield the oppor-tunity to keep up with business priorities and partners, the eco-nomic outlook and the municipal government.

“It keeps us connected to the community, which is important as we continue to grow as a city,” he says. “We want to be supportive and have an impact in Calgary for decades to come and we can only do that if we all work together to achieve the big goals and mile-stones.”

Over the past five years, Cenovus Energy Inc. employees have invested millions of dollars and contributed thousands of hours of their time in the commu-nities where they live and work.

Thanks & Giving is Cenovus’ an-nual giving campaign that encour-ages and celebrates the community spirit of its employees. During the month-long campaign in October employees are given the opportu-nity to donate to charities that are important to them with the com-pany matching the donations up to $25,000 per employee per year.

“We really try to be flexible in allowing our employees to con-tribute to organizations that are meaningful to them, and when we match those donations, employees

feel proud that the impact of their donation is really being multi-plied,” says Vicki Reid, director of community affairs.

“Some of our employees support large, national organizations and others prefer to support smaller, community-based organizations, but the choice is theirs.”

Since 2010 employees have donated $5.9 million. Thanks to Cenovus’ matching program, the total amount donated has reached $11.8 million.

“Our employees have donated to more than 1,000 organizations across Canada over our last five campaigns,” says Reid.

“That’s a remarkable amount, but we also try to support our em-ployees in giving in other ways as

well, so the amount of money they have donated really only reflects part of the story.”

Reid says Thanksgiving is a perfect fit for the Thanks & Giv-ing campaign. In addition to making donations, many Cenovus employees contribute by serving Thanksgiving meals in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where the company operates.

“This also often allows them to volunteer alongside their family members, which our staff appre-ciates as well,” says Reid. “Over the last five years, our employees and their families have served 9,728 turkey dinners at places like the Calgary Drop-In and Rehab Cen-tre, Ronald McDonald House and Inn From the Cold as well as many

others.”The campaign also encourages

food bank donations. In Calgary, donations are taken to the Veter-ans’ Food Bank.

“In Calgary, our employees have given 28,138 pounds (12,763 kilo-grams) of food since we launched the campaign,” says Reid.

Cenovus’ commitments to sus-tainability and corporate respon-sibility have been praised locally by community groups and inter-nationally by industry watchers.

In 2014, for the third year in a row, Cenovus was included in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index that recognizes companies around the world for leadership in corporate responsibility.

Cenovus was the only North American oil and gas company to make the World Index last year. It tracks the stock performance of the world’s leading companies based on economic, environmental and social criteria.

Accolades aside, Reid says sup-porting employees in volunteerism and philanthropy just makes sense for the company and its people.

“Our focus on supporting our employees in giving and volunteer-ing really does contribute to creat-ing a strong and healthy corporate culture and improves morale,” says Reid.

“We love hearing our employees tell us about how they have been positively impacted by giving, and as a result, our employees are more engaged in their communities and more engaged in our organization as well. Everyone benefits.”

BROOKFIELD BUILDS VIBRANT COMMUNITIES

A S P E C I A L C A LG A R Y H E R A L D S E R I E S O N C A LG A R Y ’ S B U S I N E S S V I S I O N A R I E S S P O N S O R E D B Y C A LG A R Y E C O N O M I C D E V E LO P M E N TFOCUS

ONLEADERSHIP

Brookfield Residential chief operating officer Trent Edwards says the builder-developer is proud to call Calgary home.

Cenovus and its employees have given millions of dollars to charities thanks to a donation-matching program.

THIS FEATURE WAS PRODUCED BY THE CALGARY HERALD’S SPECIAL PROJECTS DEPARTMENT ON BEHALF OF CALGARY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES. THE HERALD’S EDITORIAL DEPARTMENTS HAD NO INVOLVEMENT IN THE CREATION OF THIS CONTENT.

The Calgary Internation-al Airport (YYC) is the best-served airport per capita in Canada, with 200 flights per day to 78 non-stop destina-tions, and it also has more warehouse space than any other airport in the nation.

Its economic impact is far-reaching and growing, with the number of non-stop flights doubling in less than a decade as the airport serves about 40,000 passengers a day.

The airport is focused on making a significant con-tribution to the economic health and well-being of the city, connecting Calgary to people and prosperity, says Stephan Poirier, senior vice-president and chief commercial officer of The Calgary Airport Authority.

“On a yearly basis, the Calgary International Air-port provides more than $8.2 billion in added value to the GDP and is respon-sible for 48,000 direct and indirect jobs, includ-ing 24,000 jobs on airport land,” says Poirier.

Growth has been strate-gic and ambitious as YYC has more than doubled in size and passenger volume over the past two decades.

In 2013, the airport set a record by welcoming 14.3 million passengers, and the outlook for 2014 in-dicates another record year.

“We haven’t just focused on passenger growth, but on cargo as well, becoming a conduit between buy-ers and sellers around the globe,” says Poirier.

“We serve as a gateway for industry, allowing Calgary businesses to compete glob-ally. Over the last 15 years, we went from 300,000 square feet of warehouse space to three million square feet on airport land.”

The more than $2 billion Airport Development Pro-gram (ADP) at YYC will en-sure the airport meets the needs of its growing pas-senger and cargo volumes.

Key relationships with airlines and partners such as Travel Alberta and Calgary Economic Devel-opment have also helped ensure the airport’s strate-gic plans benefit everyone.

“We take our role serious-ly, and we’re really proud of what we have been able to accomplish,” says Poirier.

Airport propels economic growth

Stephan Poirier with the Calgary International Airport.

EMBRACING CHARITABLE GIVING AT CENOVUS