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Help us reduce our environmental footprint

We work largely with information technology, and so on the surface it would seem that our business has a relatively low environmental impact. Looking deeper, we’ve found many initiatives where we can play a key role in reducing the impact our operations have on our planet. These range from the obvious to hidden but significant impacts such as the resources used to run our client’s servers.
 
We’ve made great progress on these items already, but know it is important to get them on paper and work towards even more improvement.
 
The primary focus in our initiatives is to reduce:

1. The resources used to power our facilities, office equipment and client servers
2. Travel via car, train and airplane and to offset the travel that we do incur
3. The use of office supplies, including printing, paper and toner
4. Recycle or compost the majority of our waste, including electronics

 
Here are the things we’re doing to help, and I would love your feedback on how we can do more. I know that we can get to the point where Myplanet has not just a neutral, but a positive impact on the Earth that supports us.
 
If you want to improve it, start by measuring it
 
The key metrics that we will be monitoring in 2010 and 2011 will include

• Facilities power consumption
• Data centre power consumption
• Waste (garbage, recycling, compost)
• Office supply consumption (paper, postage and other)

 
All of these metrics will be correlated against our headcount and number of servers so we can work to improve these numbers overall and also adjusted for our growth.
 
Data, Data Everywhere. How do we power it all?
 
Pretty much anything you access on the web is stored somewhere, likely in a data centre, and the resources that power the servers in these data centres are significant. To source a great McKinsey study, the CO₂ emissions of data centres globally are now matching that of entire countries, and are expected to quadruple by 2020.

We would like to see all of our clients in a LEED or Energy Star facility by the end of 2011.

Standards have been established for improving the efficiency of data centres, including LEED and Energy Star certification. We’re committed to encouraging our current providers to advance towards these, and to begin pilots with LEED certified data centres. We would like to see all of our clients in a LEED or Energy Star facility by the end of 2011.
 
Around our offices we’re taking steps to install more energy-efficient light bulbs and also to reduce phantom power. For the power that we do use, we’ve committed to Bullfrog Power to ensure our electricity comes from renewable sources.
 
Stop hitting the road Jack, why don’t you stay home today?
 
We generally meet our clients at their offices, and travel is required for conferences and trade shows. To a degree this is unavoidable, but we’re working to reduce and optimize our travel. This saves us time, saves our clients money, and helps the environment.
 
Our key initiatives here are to use remote and telephone meetings whenever possible, require a carpool if more than one person from our office is attending, and to purchase carbon offsets on some of our travel. By 2011 we would like to ensure that all our travel (road, train and air) is offset.
 
Why do you need to print so much?
 
We’re pretty lean on our office supplies, given our love of all things technology. But we still go through them  and can make efforts here to improve. These include setting the default printer settings to draft, double sided, and two-sheets-per-page. We’ve implemented efforts to track the use of our printer, toner and paper. Also we avoid printing out large slide decks and training manuals in favour of a digital copy (unless requested) – heck, we all know those just get recycled or lost after the meeting anyways.
 
In addition, we’re delivering the majority of client communications online, including marketing, industry studies and client statements. Reducing items that have to be mailed (and the associated carbon emissions) is one more small thing we can do.
 
Finally we’ve ensured washable versus disposable cutlery, cups and plates for our kitchen. By 2011 we will be working towards a process to ensure sourcing from environmentally-conscious suppliers for office furniture, office equipment, services and supplies.

What you do use, make sure someone else can re-use.

Same as above, we don’t have a lot of waste that leaves our office, and the waste that does is largely recycled or composted.  But we’re taking steps to improve that even further. This includes a blue bin at each work station, and moving waste bins to central locations. Finally, we’re bringing our used electronics to be recycled appropriately at our local electronics recycling facility.
 
So then the question becomes… what more can we do? We would love your feedback for additional items large and small. Drop us an email or comment below.
 

thoughts?

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