Integrated Sustainability offers diverse experiences

When Stuart Torr founded Integrated Sustainability Consultants Ltd. in 2010, the new company’s president and CEO knew what he wanted. It was to bring engineering and science professionals together in a single organization to create sustainable water management and fully realize the potential in holistic systems thinking.

“Recycling water from industrial applications to irrigate crops, or sharing waste heat to power lithium recycling,” Torr says, “are possibilities when we connect the dots.” Thinking that way, he adds, needs a flow of ideas, not just between disciplines but generations. “Integrated Sustainability has stressed mentorship from the start.”

The company, which now numbers 140 employees and associates, has an impressive array of experts. “We brought together great specialists in climate, carbon, water treatment, and groundwater,” says Torr, “and that has given us the technology and knowledge to take process-affected water, clean it up, and safely discharge it back into the environment.”

It has also made for a welcoming and mentorship-rich workplace culture, according to junior hydrologist Ryan Parisien, who joined in 2021 after a university co-op stint. Parisien knew Calgary-based Integrated Sustainability even before his co-op experience. “I used to DJ their Christmas parties, so I knew the people and the really interesting work they were doing.”

For all the flexible work options, frequent performance reviews and robust health benefits, it was the diverse experience and training on offer that has most appealed to Parisien. “Even right out of school, they had me on so many different projects, doing different things,” he says.

“Then, two years ago when our geomatics guy departed, leaving the drones and survey equipment, I said I was interested,” Parisien adds. “It wasn’t anything I’d studied in university, but the company said sure, give it a try, and provided all the guidance I needed. Now, I lead our geomatics data collection, where we’ve developed our own in-house drone boats. I don’t think I would ever have learned what I have about geomatics without them just handing over the keys.”

The same mindset about collaboration and learning led Integrated Sustainability and the Canadian Society for Evolving Energy to jointly establish the energy ambassador mentorship program – and to Parisien eagerly becoming an ambassador. “Our training included specialists discussing all aspects of the energy transition – nuclear energy really interested me – and I met a lot of young professionals as well as older mentors,” Parisien says. “It’s been great to network with these high-level people.”

For Torr, “it has been rewarding to figure out what this group of young people needs.” There is uncertainty in the public mind and even among experts, he says, as to what is sustainable and what is not, how far and how fast the world can move to decarbonization via renewable energy. “So, it’s still difficult for young people to see a path to a career in the transition from fossil fuel energy. The energy ambassadorships let us aggregate our experiences and dispel confusion.”

There are currently around 25 ambassadors, all in southern Alberta, about a fifth of them Integrated Sustainability staff, all from businesses deeply involved in the coming transition. “They work in oil and gas, mining, biogas, lithium, areas like that, and while we here provide training and mentorship,” Torr says, “they become the voice – inside and outside their companies – of how to achieve sustainability.

“We went through carbon 101, water management, helium, hydrogen, geothermal and nuclear, so the ambassadors can have credible and intelligent conversations within their firms and in the outside world as well,” says Torr. “That’s what the next generation of energy leadership needs, to grow that conversation into meaningful change.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Alberta’s Top Employers winners, published January 28, 2025 in the Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.

Integrated Sustainability prizes teamwork and agility

It’s only to be expected that the people who make up Integrated Sustainability Consultants Ltd. value time spent enjoying nature, says Jennifer Keturakis, vice president, operations. “We’re all keenly aware of the impact that humans have on the environment and are dedicated to doing meaningful work in protecting it,” she says.

An appreciation and passion for the complexity of nature is a quality Calgary-based Integrated Sustainability seeks when recruiting, explains Keturakis. “Every project’s environmental requirements are unique. To create sustainable infrastructure accounting for these variations, we need nimble scientists and engineers with an attitude of eager curiosity,” the vice president says.

“What we really look for in new hires is the willingness to wear multiple hats. We want highly-motivated people who want to learn, and if we can help them learn and develop, we’ll do that.”

Mentorship and professional advancement are key values at Integrated Sustainability. “I think the most impactful thing that we do is encourage connectivity,” says Keturakis. “We define career paths with our people by asking, ‘What do you want to do over the next, one, three or even five years? How do we support you? How do I make sure that people across the company understand what your aspirations are?’”

She describes it as “connecting the dots,” and as a significant factor in retaining talent. “I’ve been in positions over my career where I couldn’t see my path forward, which led me to leave the organization.”

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) advisor Kyra Kovach agrees. “I have a BSc in environmental science with a chemistry concentration, but here I’m not in a lab doing the same thing day in, day out,” says Kovach, who joined Integrated Sustainability in early 2024. “I’ve had the opportunity to learn rapidly in a dynamic organization from the variety of work that we do. So, I’ve been able to progress my skills quite significantly in a short period of time.

“I have always been very interested in business, and at Integrated Sustainability I’ve been able to experience a lot of different aspects of the company through a business development lens, such as learning how our accounting systems and project management all work — a really broad range of things,” Kovach says.

Flatter hierarchies are another hallmark of smaller companies. “As we’ve grown and spread out into different locations, Integrated has made sure to maintain that,” says Keturakis. “We reorganized the structure so we would have leaders in each location who everybody could speak with face-to-face on a regular basis.”

For all Integrated Sustainability’s other employee benefits, from flexible work options and profit-sharing to impromptu soccer games in the park, it’s the breadth of experience she’s gained and the approachability of management that most stand out to Kovach. For her, they are tightly intertwined aspects of the workplace culture.

“It’s not just management’s open doors, but also that I feel empowered to provide feedback on anything here — not just my work — and can try to be a part of developing some of our internal systems as well.”

Then there is the work itself, which aligns so closely with the values of employees passionate about the well-being of the natural world. “For me it’s always, always being in position to see companies — especially in industries that can have particularly intense environmental impacts — implement new systems and drive down that impact,” Kovach says.

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers winners, published April 8, 2025 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.