Annual review Sustainable Office.
It's that time of year again when social media platforms are overflowing with year-end reviews, the time to reflect on the positives and negatives of the past year and the time to start making New Year's resolutions and plans for the year ahead. With this in mind, we also went on a little time travel through the past year and reflected on our developments on the topic of sustainability. And what is our output? We are proud of it and the results show! Nevertheless, we will not rest on our laurels and will continue to work on even better figures.
The issue of sustainability in companies is becoming increasingly important. As an environmentally conscious architectural firm, we have not only always planned with sustainable raw materials and construction methods, but also pay special attention to keeping our ecological footprint as small as possible. We show you how we are doing on this mission in this year's annual report.
DRIVE GREEN and sharing is caring.
At the beginning of 2021, we invested in three VW ID.3 electric cars to change our mobility and thus do something good for the environment. We think it is important to present our "sustainable office" concept to the outside world as it really is. We are aware that we generate 75 to 90 percent less CO2 emissions with electric vehicles than with combustion engines, which was a strong argument for us to make the change. Hard to believe but true, we have already saved a lot of CO2 this year.
It is also particularly important to us that we use a car-sharing model. We have thus created an economical and ecological alternative in order to use the vehicles efficiently, improve cost transparency and reduce administrative costs.
BUY GREEN, eat green and do it in community.
We are not just a team, we are a family. And in a family, we like to cook and eat together. We usually go grocery shopping together during our lunch breaks. On the one hand, we reduce waste by coordinating and shopping together. On the other hand, we save energy when we're not all cooking individually. Finally, we can save a lot of money by shopping together and avoid unnecessary food that goes bad. We can also cook more creatively and inspire each other. We think that this is an important part of our sustainable concept and can positively note that our employees are also very keen to establish the idea of sustainability in everyday life.
LIGHT GREEN and think long term.
What do you mean, green light? Well, not green, but above all energy-saving! Since the renovation of our office in summer 2021, we have only used LED lamps. LED lamps last longer, consume less energy and contain no harmful substances. This 'small' change has enabled us to achieve the following successes this year.
PRINT GREEN and make your content more flexible.
Printing everything out and collecting it in folders is a thing of the past. We now only print things that don't work in digital form. Three years ago, for example, we printed out quotations to collect them in folders or printed architectural plans to revise them on paper. Over the years, we have digitized everything that is possible. This not only has the advantage of storing large amounts of data, but also offers more flexibility, such as working from any location. In addition to paper, we also save costs and energy.
BUILD GREEN and make your dreams come true.
In our planning, we make sure that we design a perfect mix of sustainable construction methods and the right resources that combine customer needs and functionality. We currently have 26 employees actively working on sustainable projects and have planned around 320 projects in the last 10 years and implemented many of them.
GREEN GOALS for 2022
We are still in the middle of our transition to GO GREEN. We have already been able to implement some things, and some are on the agenda for the coming year. We plan to expand our nutrition concept by supporting regional, sustainable food delivery services, we want to establish desk sharing and invest in solar energy. Furthermore, our team is growing and so is the need for mobility, which is why we will be adding 3 electric cars to our fleet. We will also continue to pursue the concept of working from home, as it allows us to work more flexibly and shortens our commute, especially if we only work for a few hours, for example. All in all, it's a long process to become truly GREEN. However, we are always striving to do our best and continue to invest. We are grateful that our team is united here and that everyone contributes their part to our sustainable office. Be it a sustainable journey, conscious eating or simply switching off the computer at the end of the day.