VeriForm will survive the COVID pandemic, claims Founder and President Paul Rak, because of all the money it has saved through its energy efficiency improvements | SMEs in a time of crisis
Written by Divya Sharma
VeriForm is a metal fabricator that, for the past 23 years, has been making products for uses as diverse as rail car doors, guidance systems for coast guard ships, energy facilities and telecom towers. These metal parts can be as small as a fingernail or as long as 50 feet.
As with many other companies, the COVID crisis has been a source of stress for VeriForm, some of whose employees are older and therefore more vulnerable to the virus.
“People are worried about making sure that everything is sanitized, that procedures are in place on the shop floor… All of this adds to the stress,” Paul explains to PIVOT. “Several of our senior staff are taking a leave of absence or are working remotely, so there are security issues. If you’re working remotely how does that expose our network here? That’s a huge concern of ours.”
“[The stress] adds to costs, it wears people down and introduces risk to our facility and to our customers,” he elaborates.
But that anxiety has been alleviated in part by the incredible financial savings VeriForm has made through its energy efficiency measures.
Fourteen years ago, three events came together to push Paul to do his part to make the world a better place. His daughter was born, he watched Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and he bought a Toyota Prius. He then decided to bring sustainability thinking to his company, and he hasn’t looked back since.
According to Paul, VeriForm’s largest and easiest efficiency project was the installation of switches that turn off the heating in the shop every time the garage doors open.
“The moment we installed this little limit switch… all the employees would go over to [Larry, the superintendent] and say, ‘Hey, it’s cold in here. Shut the door!’” Paul describes. “So, Larry reorganised the shop so the trucks could come all the way in, and we could shut the doors. And it happened in one week. He changed everything around.”
The numbers speak for themselves. From $6000, VeriForm’s heating bill dropped to $570 per month. Now, with over 100 energy saving projects in place, VeriForm sells three times as much product for every kilowatt of energy it uses. The company has saved $200–250,000 per year because of its sustainability measures. Its natural gas consumption is down by about 90% and its electricity by 75%.
With those kinds of savings, VeriForm’s profit is less at risk from disruptions like the housing crisis and now COVID, Paul tells us. In fact, in the past few years, VeriForm has been able to hire more people, expand its building and go carbon neutral.
“If we hadn’t done all those projects, performed all those [efficiency] upgrades and had the mindset to keep going after those upgrades, we wouldn’t be here in business, you wouldn’t be talking to me, VeriForm wouldn’t exist,” Paul declares.
His advice to other businesses is to do the same.
“It really is a missed opportunity in business, here in Canada. Why would you want to waste money on fuel when, if you reduce it, you can use that money to better your life, go on a better vacation, upgrade your home? Don’t waste money on energy. It’s an incredible waste,” Paul submits.
“If you can subsidise profits by reducing your energy costs, you can really bulletproof your business.”
VeriForm is certainly leading by example.
