Bell announces $250,000 donation to the Centre for Sustainable Development
Montreal, August 20, 2009 – Bell is pleased to announce a $250,000 donation to the Centre for Sustainable Development. This major contribution is part of the total corporate capital campaign aimed at raising $5M over five years.
This partnership highlights Bell’s interest in supporting and promoting innovative projects that help to improve environmental preservation practices. In addition to this donation, Bell supports the Centre for Sustainable Development’s community mobilization campaign by providing visibility through its Sympatico.MSN site, an excellent virtual showcase for the Centre.
The Centre’s members and its President, Sidney Ribaux, are very pleased with this partnership with Bell. “By becoming one of the Centre for Sustainable Development’s major donors, Bell is taking concrete action for future generations in terms of sustainable development. The visibility provided by Bell will help to encourage communities and businesses to follow suit.”
“We are the first telecommunications company in Canada to obtain ISO 14001 certification for its environmental management system. We constantly strive to reduce our environmental footprint— from managing our energy consumption and cutting our atmospheric emissions and waste, to the construction of our Bell Campus, which is in the process of obtaining LEED certification. Bell’s funding will be used to support a project on interactive educational modules on environmental citizenship at the Centre,” explains Carmella Zampini, Vice-President – Sales, Finance and Insurance at Bell and member of the CSD campaign team.
Centre for Sustainable Development
Eight organizations in the environmental and social sectors—Équiterre, Childcare Centre Le Petit Réseau, Centre québécois du droit de l’environnement, Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montréal, ENvironnement JEUnesse, Option consommateurs, Regroupement des Éco-quartiers, and Regroupement national des conseils régionaux de l’environnement du Québec— formed an alliance to create the Centre for Sustainable Development, a non-profit organization with a mission to build and operate an environmentally friendly model building in downtown Montréal, with features that will inspire action on the part of the general public and decision-makers in real estate and construction.
As a project with both a social and an environmental purpose, the Centre will house the offices of the eight member organizations, as well as those of other organizations that share the same values. The building will also serve as a hub of education and research on sustainable development. The Centre will aim for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification, the highest possible level in this standardization system for buildings of leading environmental quality. The Centre also launched its citizen mobilization campaign on May 6, 2009, spearheaded by the group Mes Aïeux. For more information about this campaign and the Centre, please visit http://www.lamdd.org.
About Bell
Bell is Canada's largest communications company, providing consumers and business with solutions to all their communications needs, including Bell Mobility wireless, high-speed Bell Internet, Bell TV direct-to-home satellite television, Bell Home phone local and long distance, and IP-broadband and information and communications technology (ICT) services. Bell is proud to be a Premier National Partner and the exclusive Telecommunications Partner to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
Bell is wholly owned by BCE Inc. (TSX, NYSE: BCE). For information on Bell's products and services, please visit http://www.bell.ca. For corporate information on BCE, please visit http://www.bce.ca.
For more information:
Eveline Trudel-Fugère, Équiterre
514-605-2000
Jacqueline Michelis, Bell Media Relations
613-785-1427