We do so much good and talk about it far too little. Yet we know from personal conversations that we have often been able to provide inspiration.
Self-commitment to environmental and climate protection
We, the team of the Company for the Development of Things, want to do our bit to reduce pollution. We recognise the "climate emergency" and have discussed our options together. We commit ourselves to the following:
Climate-neutral mobility and logistics
- No flights: we completely avoid business air travel #under1000km. We compensate for air travel that we cannot avoid.
- All employees have a season ticket for public transport.
- If we rent vehicles, we make sure that they are electric cars.
- Our logistics partners work in a CO2-neutral manner.
Mindful energy consumption
- We source electricity from renewable resources.
- Computers are set to go into energy-saving mode quickly.
- We create applications that are as energy-efficient as possible and also advise our clients in this regard. This includes, for example: not using decorative background videos, programming efficiently.
- Our energy-saving lamps also consume electricity. The rule is still: switch off the light when it is not needed.
- Use low outdoor temperatures to cool drinks and food (a full fridge consumes more electricity). The refrigerator in the courtyard is only used for festivities.
- We use our smart office setup to optimise our energy consumption (e.g. to further improve the heating of the office space).
- The gas heater in the courtyard is taboo. It is only used in exceptional cases. We compensate for its operation.
Waste avoidance and waste separation
- We separate our waste, sure.
- For recyclable materials that are not disposed of via waste management, we set up collection containers and regularly take them to BSR ourselves.
- We try to avoid buying plastic packaging wherever possible.
- Drinking water is not purchased, instead we use a mechanical filter system to purify tap water.
- We buy coffee and non-perishable food for the catering in bulk. For example, we do not serve individually wrapped biscuits with coffee.
- Broken equipment is first subjected to a repair attempt. This way we can avoid unnecessary replacements.
Food
We regularly cook lunch for the team, but also for guests. Not only because we have vegans + vegetarians in the team, we buy consciously, but also to protect the climate.
- Take diversity into account: We prepare meals together so that everyone can eat the same thing. We take allergies and intolerances into account as well as dietary choices for ideological/religious reasons.
- Renunciation of agonised meat. Non-vegan products are bought consciously, not casually.
- Where possible, we pay attention to regional origin.
- We buy coffee and avocados, for example, from selected cooperatives with extremely short supply chains or through direct distribution, which allows the producers to sell their goods at a humane price.coffee and avocados, for example, from selected cooperatives with extremely short supply chains or through direct distribution, which allows the producers to sell their goods at a humane price.
- Fruit and vegetables as snacks instead of sweets.
Open Data
- We operate a fine dust measuring station and feed the measurement data into an open data platform.
- We keep our eyes open where we can collect and contribute data in a similar way.
Social responsibility & community engagement
- We offer all employees additional days of leave for climate-friendly rail travel if they forego air travel for a private holiday trip.
- We refrain from wage dumping and promote the compatibility of work and family, through flexitime and various part-time options.
- We support NGOs and climate activists who take action against the ecological catastrophe with peaceful civil disobedience. All employees can participate in climate protection events during working hours.
Compensation
Together with our partner indielux, we compensate for unavoidable air travel and the operation of the mushroom heater by giving away solar devices to people with low incomes.
Maintenance of the voluntary commitment
We discuss how successful our measures have been and how we can optimise them further at least once a year in a team meeting. We also proactively talk to the property management about optimisation potential.
