5 simple ways to make your company more sustainable
Small actions can have a big impact. This is the unofficial motto of our newly founded ‘Sustainability Circle’ at mySugr. The Sustainability Circle is a true bottom-up initiative. A few colleagues decided we can make mySugr an even better place to work by giving space to improvements that go beyond the office. It’s a conscious effort to decrease the environmental footprint of everyone working here in the Vienna office.
Some context: One year ago mySugr relocated to a brand new office in the heart of Vienna. I think it is safe to say that everyone loves our new space, and the way it has been put together is done with a lot of love, expertise and mindfulness.
It’s constantly adapted to our work needs and provides a lot of different spaces to work and socialize in. Every inch of its design fosters productivity, playfulness and creativity. We’re lucky to have an office with a beautiful, versatile and fully-stocked kitchen, as well as a cafe area, sports and games facilities, a green roof terrace where we grow veggies, and different work and focus areas (yes, we do also work). Simultaneously, a lot of thought has gone into the use of sustainable materials, making sure that the furniture can be used flexibly throughout the space and is adaptable to personal ergonomic needs.
In an environment like that, you might think there is not much left to wish for. But in fact, it is the perfect environment to take things to an even higher level.
1. Reduce that pile of take-out boxes
Yes, we have a well-equipped kitchen, but often we still prefer to grab a quick take-out meal from one of the many restaurants in our immediate surroundings. Especially now, as our lunches are partially reimbursed by mySugr. Of course, this reimbursement is great, but it also had its side effects: our trash production of single use boxes, cutlery and bags went through the roof. After each lunch, the trash cans were completely full. Our solution: offer an alternative.
Step 1: provide reusable well-sealable food containers and bags in a clearly visible and practical place: near the exit for example. Step 2: positive reinforcement! During the first two weeks, we took pictures of the people who used the boxes and put them on our office Slack channel as a sort of ‘Wall of Fame.’ Step 3: put up a visible list with all the restaurants who accept self-brought containers. Indicate which places provide a little extra: a free salad or discount for example. This makes it even easier and helps newbies to choose responsibly.
Now, using the glass containers is standard practice and our waste pile has been reduced significantly.
2. Reduce your carbon commute footprint
Vienna has excellent public transport and mySugr covers public transport for all employees. Unfortunately, the city does not provide a lot of bicycle parking stations in our district. So we created a bicycle parking spot literally in the office, wedged between our meeting room, wardrobe and tea station. The result: none of us go to work by car.
3. Ban plastic bottles, bottled water and cans
Here in Austria, we love our sparkling water. For a very long time we had one liter glass bottles filling up our fridge to make sure we could all get our bubbly fix. Now, in the new office we have two water stations (in addition to our regular taps). These water stations are directly connected to the best tap water in the world: Viennese tap water comes straight from the mountains, has all the minerals and tastes great. And what makes it even better: we connected a carbon tank, so that we can have fresh bubbles in our mountain water all the time. Delicious! And putting an end to the ridiculous phenomenon that is bottled water.
The drinks the company also provides for us come in recyclable glass bottles, mostly from local and small manufacturers. We also have freshly ground coffee, which everybody makes themselves on an espresso machine, and we use loose leaf tea instead of bags.
4. Switch your search engine
After some solid research, in which we compared Google, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia, we concluded that Ecosia is the best search engine for us. It’s backed by the power of Bing, follows similar privacy codes as DuckDuckGo, and most importantly, it plants trees for every search you do. We are now looking into making this our standard search engine on every device.
5. Paper towel challenge
After long discussions we settled on recycled paper towels for the bathrooms as the most sustainable and hygienic solution. At least, as long as no one uses 5 towels per washing. This proved to be a challenge. So we put up signs and hand drying techniques (shake and fold). Recently, we even started a competition: which group of bathroom users will reduce their towel usage the most?! (While still washing their hands, of course ;) )
What’s next for mySugr?
We are aware that these steps are small. But they help us to build awareness about sustainability in an office environment and they pave the way for larger actions. One year ago, we did not really discuss sustainability, at least not outside the office design and management group. Now it has become a hot topic and an increasing number of people are involved:
- The women have started to organize regular clothes swap parties.
- After bringing a few hauls from the food saving app ‘Too Good To Go’ to the communal kitchen several other colleagues also signed up for this app.
- Instead of buying everything new, we use Slack to borrow stuff, like sleeping bags, board games and baking supplies and even to simply give things away like books and those poorly chosen Christmas presents from our mother-in-law.
- When discussing the paper towel challenge during our last Show & Tell, people actually came on stage to ask about our flying policy, and how to tackle those larger sustainability issues that every international company has to deal with somehow.
So you see, when people are stimulated to thrive not only as ‘workers’, but also as human beings, you create an environment that does not only benefit the company, but also the planet at large. And all it needs is a small spark… shaped like a take-out box or a paper towel.
