At InterCall, we are encouraging our employees to participate in Earth Day. If you have a volunteer activity, educational opportunity or festival that we can participate in, please post information here in our comments section.
Last year, our employees got involved in Earth Day activites all across the country, including school activities, local clean ups and festivals. We want even more participation and have employees world wide, so please tell us how we can help make your event a success!
This is a remarkable story about one neighborhood of 30 homes which came together and pledged to uphold the conditions of the Kyoto Protocol. Their goal: to reduce their carbon footprint by 25% within one year.
Did they succeed?
Within just 4 months, the 30 self proclaimed Carbon Cutters reduced their carbon footprint by 20%. They are now coming up to the end of their first year and the unofficial results show they dropped their collective carbon footprint by 30%.
Where did they start?
First, they collected data from one year’s worth of utility bills to understand their baseline carbon footprint. Second, each household received an eco audit. The audit included electricity and natural gas, and fuel consumption – both automobile and air travel. Graphical data showed the family how they compared to the average household of similar size in each of these categories. The families were then able to track their carbon reductions each month through a software tracking program provided by the non profit organization the Green Heart Institute.
How did they do it?
The accumulation of several small changes added up to big results. Insulating their homes, swapping out incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescents, conserving energy, commuting via bus, bicycle, or telecommuting, and reducing the amount of air travel all contributed toward their 30% reduction. Several home also invested in solar panels which significantly lowered their carbon footprint. All of their solutions are within reach of the average family.
What was their secret?
These Carbon Cutters cited their number one success strategy as the accountability they all felt towards each other. Community spirit is at large. Neighbors previously anonymous to each other, met at informal house parties to collectively brainstorm, to share success stories, to educate themselves on global warming, and to reinforce the importance of their efforts. Some meetings centered on watching educational movies such as “An Inconvenient Truth” and “Who Stole the Electric Car”. Some meetings centered on lectures from local sustainability experts eager to speak to a proactive audience.
I am encouraged by the ‘can do’ spirit of these neighbors. They have put into practice simple lifestyle changes which prove that can, in fact, work together and fulfill their part of a global initiative. Many cities throughout the U.S. have taken on the Kyoto Protocol challenge themselves. These cities, I believe, are slow to engage their corporate and residential citizens. The ‘Carbon Cutters’ group is a refreshing reminder that we all have immediate contributions to offer to our neighbors, our cities, our country and to our global compatriots.
Laura has been an Account Manager with InterCall for 4 years. She was first introduced to the ‘green’ concepts of re-use, recycle, and repair from her parents who grew up towards the end of the depression. These concepts were further re-enforced to her during her years living abroad in France and in the Netherlands. At present, Laura volunteer for ‘Boulder County Going Local’, the Sierra Club, and attends her town’s Resource Conservation Advisory Board. Please Welcome Guest Bloggers from the InterCall Toronto Office: Cristina Lucas & Jennifer Cramb
Since the start of our company’s recent green initiative there has been increasing awareness in our office when it comes to being green. There are many ways that people can decide to reduce, reuse and recycle, but here are some of the steps we’ve found to be successful in all three areas.
Reduce
As our office is in a very urban part of the city, we are fortunate to have access to several forms of public transportation. We all try to participate and have some options available such as the commuter train, subway, streetcars, buses and carpooling. Each of these options reduces carbon emissions and, as an added bonus, we feel that it improves our quality of life. With what would normally be a lot of time spent in the car in traffic, we can now prepare for meetings, read, socialize, and be stress free.
Our office has quite a bit of natural light available. Because of this, it’s common for us to work without having to turn the lights on. Each room has its own light switch and thermostat that allows us to control and maintain our energy consumption. Our building has even installed sensors in the bathrooms so that the lights only turn on when it is occupied.
The main culprit in our “reduce” area is paper consumption. There’s always someone you know in your office that “accidentally” prints off the entire sales database / inbox, or puts in paper the wrong way. The best policy we’ve implemented to help reduce our paper use is having a duplex printer. Our network team has assisted in updating everyone’s computers so their default settings include the duplex feature. If your office doesn’t have a duplex printer, you can always reuse sheets by putting them back into the printer to reprint on the other side. This is really good for those documents that you have to work off of but don’t need to keep forever.
Reuse
The reuse philosophy is one that commonly gets overlooked by people in the office place. It’s easy to get your take-out food, use plastic forks and disposable cups. With our office kitchenette, we are able bring in our own lunches and reuse dishware instead of paper and plastic alternatives, thereby allowing us to wash and reuse plates, cutlery, and mugs.
There are also more creative ways to be “friendlier” in the food court than you may think. For instance, when getting coffee for the team, we keep the cardboard trays and take them back on our next coffee run. Some places will double-package your food, frst in its container, and then again in a bag. We skip the double-bag / plate, or bring our own substitute that we use on a daily basis. We also use reusable bags when going to and from the office.
Recycle
Having someone on site that is diligent in educating and reminding others of our green responsibility is essential. We affectionately refer to this person as the “office garbage picker”. This person is our constant reminder that “Yes, that can be recycled” or “No, you don’t need to print that email”. Creating signs can also help people understand the role they play in office recycling.
In order to be more efficient in recycling, we are approaching our building management to discuss options for composting or “green boxing”. This is one thing that we are currently unable to facilitate on our own and need additional support for.
Being more aware and having good communication with your teammates is important to achieving the three Rs of reduce, reuse, recycle. These are the things that have worked for us, but there are tons of ways to go green in your office. What challenges or successes has your office faced in going green?
So for all of you who took the Green Quiz, and wondered what we learned from it…here’s some good intel!
This survey shows that while companies are all at different phases in their green missions, environmental initiatives are certainly on everyone’s radar these days and reducing business travel has become a major focus of many corporate efforts.
Now we have to say we’re impressed with your choice of “going green” policy changes…when we asked what your company is doing to cut back on it’s carbon footprint, the top response was providing conferencing tools to cutback on travel (66%).
Just how involved are the employees in their companies' quest to be green? The survey found that to cut down on travel, teams are using phone conference calls (76%), Web conferences (63%) and video conferences (50%).
Telecommuting was also a big hit with respondents. Seventy-one percent said their companies enable employees to telecommute on a full or part-time basis. Of those supporting telecommuting, 25 percent say their companies actively encourage the practice. Other popular responses for how companies are becoming “green” in the workplace include recycling (61 percent) and working with environmentally-friendly vendors (29 percent). When it comes to awareness of green issues overall, only 31 percent of employees know their company’s carbon footprint and another 31 percent reported that their company is planning to complete a carbon footprinting project within the next year.
Businesses are an important group to target with green issues. Avoiding travel by using conferencing is a change businesses can make that is immediate and easy to implement. They can easily reduce their footprint without expensive changes to their product or processes...it’s simply a change in behavior.
And that’s what it’s all about. Since we started this blog, we’ve wanted to make sure you know the choices you can make to be green, and that it’s all about little changes in your behavior that make the difference!
Carolyn Campbell
Senior Director, Marketing Communications
InterCall
On Tuesday April 22, InterCall will be hosting a webinar, Planting the Seed of Success: Growing your business through an environmental initiative. Chris Henn, COO at Esurance and Joann Lee, Community Relations at Esurance will be on hand to share how “green” initiatives have changed their business. Martin Fox of Stradbrooke Consultancy will also share a list of top 10 tips to offset carbon emissions.
To register for the webinar, click here.
If you participated in the webinar and have any feedback or questions for the speakers, please leave a comment. Let’s continue the spirit of the webinar and of Earth Day by learning more best practices from each other here on the blog!
Earlier this month, InterCall challenged its employees to get involved in Earth Day activities. A short list of volunteer activities and festivals was sent out to all employees and the response has been overwhelming! Employees from Mexico City
to Chicago to Sydney have all agreed to participate in activities that will educate and empower individuals for Earth Day.
Click on comments to hear stories from our employees and be on the lookout for some great pictures soon!
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