What Sustainability Means At One Of A Kind

Since 1975, we have been providing a platform for small businesses to build their brands, expand their audiences and to sell direct to consumers. In Canada, small businesses are the country’s largest employer, putting more than 8.4 million Canadians to work. Between our Winter and Spring events, One Of A Kind facilitated more than $35 million in product sales on the show floor. When people come to One Of A Kind, they are not simply buying a beautiful product, their purchases are also fueling the operation of small businesses, in turn contributing to the health of the local economy.

• We offer various entry level exhibition options, along with scholarships for first time exhibitors, newly launched businesses and out of province vendors to help alleviate the cost of doing the show. Click here to learn more
• A portion of our Rising Stars Section (a section for first-time exhibitors) is reserved in priority for makers and artisans who self-identify as Black, Indigenous, or Persons of Colour (BIPOC). Those selected will also receive 50% off their exhibit space in this entry-level section.
• For our 2023 Spring Show, we are proud to present the Let’s Duuo This Scholarship powered by Duuo—our preferred insurance partner—to help small businesses offset cost of participating at our events.

Since 2013, One Of A Kind has partnered with local charities at our Winter and Spring events. With the help of our generous visitors, we have raised more than $72,000 to give back to our communities. At our 2022 Winter Show, One Of A Kind will continue to work with CAMH: The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. With the donation we collect at our event, we aim to continue to help raise awareness and increase access to mental health resources.

Our generous visitors have the option to “pay it forward” and purchase a ticket so that a newcomer to Canada can attend One Of A Kind free of charge. Working with the New Circles Community Services, this program provides an opportunity for new immigrants to get to know their community and to feel inspired by creativity.

For over 40 years, One Of A Kind has provided a platform for creative entrepreneurs to make a living doing what they love. At the 2022 Winter Show, One Of A Kind will be donated over $3500 ($1 off every youth ticket sold at the Show) to VIBEArts, a Toronto based charity committed to providing children and youth in under resourced communities with high quality community and school based arts education.

We acknowledge that all of us have the capacity to learn, grow and change. We are committed to sharing resources on topics like cultural appropriation, inclusive language, unconscious bias so that everyone within our community can contribute, be heard, and succeed at the Show

Enercare Centre is a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified venue. As of January 2022, the venue has also signed the Net Zero Carbon Events Pledge—a global initiative to address climate change across the events and meetings industry, per the targets laid out in the Paris Climate Accord, to commit to achieving net zero by 2050. For more information about Exhibition Place's green initiatives, please click here.

• We work with our venue and partners to ensure all utensils and serve ware onsite are compostable. The venue management program also diverts all food waste away from landfill and into compost.
• At the Show, we encourage everyone to bring their own shopping bags and reusable water bottles/coffee cups so that we can reduce single use waste products.
• Currently, over 50% of our show signage are recyclable, and we reuse over 30% of signage from show to show.
• By not having a printed show guide allow us to eliminate the use of over 4000 pounds (2000 kilogram) of paper.
• The sales team have opted to print recruitment info on seed paper with the hopes to extend the life cycle of this product.

• By not installing aisle carpet, we are also eliminating the use of over 160, 000 square feet of carpet (this roughly equals to 3 football fields!). Carpet can only be reused so many times before they end up in the landfill.
• One Of A Kind has a consolidated shipping program for vendors coming from Calgary, Vancouver and Montreal. This program allows us to take an active step to save on carbon emission from transport.
• One Of A Kind is 100% powered by renewable energy through Informa's renewable energy program.
• Through our partnership with GO Transit, we encourage visitors to take public transportation to attend our Show.

We utilize a code of conduct so that our community is clear on our expectations when it comes to building safe, secure, inclusive, and respectful environments.

We encourage our vendors to complete a voluntary self-identification survey so that they can share with us type of business they run (eg. Women-owned, LGBTQ+ owned, etc). We use this information to help us build more diverse and inclusive marketing campaigns. Through this survey, we are also capturing the different languages spoken by our community, so that we can expand our media and audience outreach strategy. At the event, exhibitors and staff have the option to include their preferred pronouns and names on their show badges.

At the Show, we offer complimentary admission for the support person of a person with a disability. We also have various procedures in place to ensure we are creating the same opportunity for people with disabilities to access our goods and services in the same place and in a similar way as other participants. The One Of A Kind Show is fully compliant with AODA Customer Service Standards.